




















/ 

























The 

CAMBRIC 

MASK 


A Romance 

By 

Robert W. Chambers 

If 

Author of 


“The King in Yellow,” “Ashes of Empire,” “The Red Republic,” 
“Lorraine,’-’ “The Haunts of Men,” etc., etc. 



Jfteto pork 

Frederick A. Stokes Company 
Publishers 






$ 


tA\ 


Copyright , 1899, 

By Frederick A. Stokes Company 

All Rights Reserved 

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<*- I j 1 


To 


E. C. 

Red-Bird, be my messenger! 

With my love I send to her 
This small book I penned to her 
From my shallow store of lore : 
Scarlet-robed ambassador, 

Why should we pretend to her 
That we speak in metaphor ? 

Northward, Red Ambassador, 
Flutter lightly to her door ! — 

For your train a dainty corps 
Of attaches raise for her, — 

Golden- Finch and Tanager 
Skilled in eloquence to pour 
Diplomatic praise for her. 

Take the King-Bird on your way, — 
Halcyon, and Crested-Jay, 

Purple Finch, and Recollet, 

As Interpreters for me ; — 

Take the rose and grey Towhee, 
Take the Gipsy Silk-Tail gay, 
Draped in silken organdie. 


v 


vi 


DEDICATION 


To your Southern Embassy 
Versed in verse and virolays 
Secretaries are attached, 

To instruct the lately hatched 
In Romance and Roundelays 
Madrigals and Sonnets matched. 

Veery, Bobolink, and Lark, 

Nightingales for after dark, 

Cackling Grackles from the Park, 
Yellow-eyed and hackle-dyed, 

Crackling, satin sleek, outside — 

Satan inside, — save the mark ! — 

Gowned Attorneys in their pride. 

Let the fierce Shrike follow her, 

Fight and die for love of her, — 

Let each feathered forester 
Sound the call : To wing ! To wing ! 

So shall you my greeting bring 
Red Ambassador to her ! 

So shall you my greeting sing 
From your shallow store of lore, 

Scarlet feathered Troubadour — 

Sing my greeting till the Spring 
Wakes below the snow once more. 

R. W. C. 


Mid- Winter, 1899. 


CONTENTS 


CHAP. PAGE. 

I. A Newspaper Paragraph i 

II. Trouble Begins 24 

III. Trouble Continues . . . .52 

IV. The First Warning . . . .84 

V. The North American Venus . . 109 

VI. A New Arrival 124 

VII. Miss Ember Sews . . . .143 

VIII. A Study in White . . . .157 

IX. A Study in Pink . . . .184 

X. The Ultimatum of Rose . . . 204 

XI. Old Comrades 223 

XII. Afterglow 247 

XIII. The Cambric Mask .... 259 

XIV. The Masters of Finance . . . 290 

XV. The Mistress of Romance . . 312 


Envoi. 



THE CAMBRIC MASK 


CHAPTER I 

A NEWSPAPER PARAGRAPH 

INTRODUCING TWO BENEVOLENT GENTLE- 
MEN WHOSE CURIOSITY IS AROUSED BY 
A NEWSPAPER CLIPPING 

When the president of the Sweet-Fern 
Distilling Company climbed down from the 
Pullman car, he lingered, as he always did, 
rubbing his double chin with a fat thumb, 
apoplectic eyes following the receding squall 
of dust where the last car of the Mohawk 
Express clattered around the curve into the 
smoke-choked tunnel. 

The vice-president, who stood on the sun- 
scorched platform beside his president, dust- 


2 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


in g cinders from a ready-made suit of broad- 
cloth, offered his invariable observation : 

“ If them cusses had went and built the 
U. & C. railroad thirty mile north — eh, 
Guernsey ? ” 

And the president replied as he had re- 
plied to the same remark for twenty years : 

“Or if the sweet-fern grew along their 
darned line — eh, Creed? ” 

To which suggestion Joshua Creed sniffed 
as usual, and picking up his lank valise, 
walked softly into the Water Tower shanty. 

Daniel Guernsey followed, wheezing a pro- 
test at self-propulsion ; for the president of 
the Sweet-Fern Distilling Company was a 
gentleman of full habit and sedentary in- 
clinations, and auto-locomotion was distaste- 
ful to him. 

“ Hey, Murphy ! ” he said to the solitary 
old track-walker whose duties included 
watching the water-tower; — “ say, Murphy, 
jest you take this bag into your shanty will 
you ? ” 


A NEWSPAPER PARAGRAPH 


3 


The grey-haired track-walker picked up 
the valise indifferently. He had done the 
same thing at intervals for twenty years. 

“ Much obliged/’ said Guernsey following 
the old man into the watchman’s shanty; 
“ jest sit it down anywhere, Murphy ; never 
mind where ; — I ain’t particular ; — no sir.” 

The president’s tone was hearty, almost 
jocular, but he did not look at Murphy when 
he spoke ; he was afraid the old man might 
ask him for a tip, — but he had been afraid 
of this for twenty years. 

“ Now I’ll jest set down here ; don’t let 
me disturb you, Murphy ; — I’ll jest set 
here.” 

He paused in displeasure, for Joshua 
Creed, the lean vice-president, had absently 
seated himself in the only chair, apparently 
oblivious of his ranking officer’s intentions. 
Guernsey stared at Creed, then sulkily 
squatted on his own valise, irritably con- 
scious that Creed was comfortable. 

“Got a newspaper, Murphy?” asked 


4 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


Creed, pretending not to notice Guernsey’s 
discomfort, and stroking his shaven upper 
lip with bony fingers. 

But Guernsey had already forestalled 
him, and now sat hunched up on his valise, 
fat legs wide apart, heavy head buried in 
the single sheet of the Mohawk County 
Star . 

Murphy raised his apathetic eyes to the 
window and gazed blankly at the long line 
of rails glittering in the white afternoon 
glare. Creed transferred his attention from 
the purple neck and ears of his president, 
to the withered countenance of Murphy. 

“ Hain’t that buckboard hitched up, yet? ” 
he asked with a hard relaxation of his hard 
jaw. The unlovely facial contortion opened 
the dry crack between nose and chin which 
served for a mouth. 

Guernsey lifted one eyebrow, looking 
across the top of his newspaper toward the 
shanty door. 

“He’s hitchin’ up,” wheezed the pres- 


A NEWSPAPER PARAGRAPH 5 

ident : “ Murphy, jest step out and tell my 
man to hurry, will you. An’ tell him to 
give you a cigar, Murphy, if he’s got one.” 

At this unexampled munificence Creed 
shut his thin mouth firmly and leaned back 
in the chair; as for Murphy, he limped 
away, too astonished to reply. 

“ Your a-spilin’ of that there old man,” 
said Creed coldly. 

“ I don’t buy my coachman’s cigars,” re- 
plied Guernsey ; “if Dodson can do Murphy 
a little kindness for me, it ain’t a-goin’ to 
cost me nothin’ ; an’ nobody’s the worse I 
guess.” 

After a moment he added: “ Air you 
tired a settin’ in that chair, Joshua ? ” 

“ No, I hain’t,” said Creed, without 
emotion. 

“Selfish annermal,” « muttered Guernsey 
under his breath, and thrust his nose closer 
to the newspaper, sulkily aware that Creed 
was attempting to read the back columns of 
advertisements. 


6 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


Presently Creed asked for half the paper, 
and Guernsey reluctantly tore the sheet 
down the middle crease and handed over the 
half that contained the lesser items and 
advertisements. And that manoeuvre was 
the greatest mistake of his life ; he had not 
the faintest suspicion of it for the moment ; 
he might never have been aware of it had 
he not noticed Joshua Creed’s long bony 
fingers tighten on the edge of the sheet until 
the flimsy wood-pulp paper split with a faint 
crackling that startled Guernsey and aroused 
Creed’s caution, too late. 

“ He’s found something in that paper,” 
thought Guernsey pretending to be absorbed 
in his own half of the journal. He dared 
not look up again, but, listening, he heard 
Creed stealthily tearing a corner out of the 
paper. 

“ What air you a doin,’ Joshua? ” he de- 
manded suddenly. 

Creed’s parchment skin flushed. 

“ Hey ? ” he asked blankly. 


A NEWSPAPER PARAGRAPH 


7 


“ Was you asleep? ” inquired Guernsey ; 
“ Quit tearin’ that there paper.” 

“ It ain’t yourn, is it ? ” retorted Creed, 
— “ if it is, here’s a cent ; ” he shoved one 
large dry hand into his trowsers, hesitated, 
then cautiously withdrew it, adding — “ I’ll 
settle damages with Murphy, Dan’l Guern- 
sey.” 

u What was you a-tearin’ out ? ” insisted 
Guernsey. ? 

“ Time-iable for the U. & C.,” replied 
Creed, and got up, tossing the mutilated 
paper onto the chair behind him. 

Guerr sey possessed himself of the chair 
as Creed went out of the door. He pretended 
to read, but, behind the newspaper, he saw 
Creed, through the window, throw a bit of 
crumpled paper into the tall grass beside 
the water-tower. A moment later Creed 
disappeared toward the shed where Dodson 
was harnessing a pair of bays to the double 
buckboard. 

“ I guess I’ll see what was so darned secret 


8 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


about that time-table,” muttered Guernsey, 
waddling out to the water-tower. It hurt 
bim to bend bis waistband, but be leaned 
over and groped about until bis glasses slid 
off bis nose and disappeared in tbe long 
grass. He clutched at them ; they were 
gone, and be was blinder than a bat without 
them. He clutched again and there was one 
chance in a million that be would find them. 
He lost the chance, but the luck of the 
Guernseys held better than that, for in his 
fat fist, crushed into a ball, he discovered 
the pellet of newspaper that Joshua Creed 
had tom from the journal and thrown 
away. 

At the same moment the grating of wheels 
warned him, and he thrust the wad of paper 
into his waistcoat pocket just as the buck- 
board appeared around the shanty corner. 
In the buckboard sat Creed, and his grim 
face changed when he beheld Guernsey, 
knee-deep in the grass beside the water- 
tower. For Creed instantly grasped the 


A NEWSPAPER PARAGRAPH 


9 


situation, and his lean visage contracted 
until the skin on the cheek bones glis- 
tened. 

Guernsey knew that Creed knew, but he 
had the whip hand and he knew that too. 

“ What was it you was a-hidin’ out here 
in the grass, Joshua Creed ? ” he asked. 
“ No, don’t you go denyin’ it ; I seen you, 
an’ if I hadn’t lost- my glasses ” 

He waddled out to the cinder road and 
laid one hand on the horses’ bits. 

“ Git out an’ find my glasses, Dodson,” 
he said ; and, as the coachman sprang into 
the tall grass, the president turned reproach- 
fully to Creed : 

“You was concealin’ the market reports 
from me ; yes, you was, Joshua Creed, to take 
advantage of your own friend and partner.” 

“ Hey ! ” said Creed, suspiciously. 

“ Ya-as you did,” snarled Guernsey, turn- 
ing to receive the glasses recovered by Dod- 
son. He wiped them, tried them on his flat 
nose, and removed them to breathe upon each 


IO 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


lens separately and polish it with a red silk 
handkerchief. 

“ I’ve a mind to go and hunt for that 
paper,” he said, peering askance at Creed 
with near-sighted eyes. 

“ It wa’n’t nothin’,” replied Creed sul- 
lenly, yet more at ease now that he was sure 
Guernsey had not found the scrap of paper. 

“ Old fox,” he reflected, “ a-nosin’ into 
that there swale grass ! I guess you ain’t 
no wiser for all your cussed smartness, Dan’l 
Guernsey ! ” 

Guernsey climbed into the buckboard, 
wheezed once or twice, then lighted a very 
long and very black cigar. 

“ Good-by, Murphy,” he said affably ; 
“ drive on, Dodson.” 

But before the buckboard started a 
thought struck Creed, and he leaned out of 
the vehicle tossing a ten-cent piece to Mur- 
phy. 

“ Take it,” he said grimly, “ I tore the 
time-table out of your paper.” 


A NEWSPAPER PARAGRAPH n 

The old man took the coin in a dazed man- 
ner, limping into the road to pick it up. 
He stood there, until the buckboard whirled 
out of sight. 

“Old fox,” mused Guernsey; “he did 
that to make me think it was the time-table. 
He’s jest wasted ten cents though.” 

A few moments later, Dodson the coach- 
man, turned in his seat and said : 

“ Beg pardon, Mr. Guernsey, sir, — if you 
wish the time-table ” 

“ Hey ? ” said Guernsey. 

“ Were you wishing to see the Mohawk 
County Star , sir ? ” 

“Yes, have you got one?” blurted out 
Guernsey. 

Creed made an instinctive motion, then 
checked it, but for a moment he appeared to 
be on the point of taking Dodson by the 
neck. 

“ Gimme the paper, Dodson,” said Guern- 
sey with a sidelong leer at Creed. Dodson 
reached under the seat and drew out a soiled 


12 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


copy of tlie Star . Guernsey took possession 
of it with malignant alacrity. He leaned 
back in his seat, opening the paper, pretend- 
ing not to look into the lower right-hand 
corner where the vital interest lay — vital 
to him indeed. 

“ Where did you say that time-table might 
be?” he asked sarcastically, looking up at 
Creed ; then, startled at the sneer on Creed’s 
dry mask of a face, he hastily searched the 
lower right-hand corner of the paper. 

Somebody had cut out the very paragraph 
that Creed had mutilated in Murphy’s 
copy. 

For a moment Guernsey was speechless 
with wrath, then recollecting the wad of paper 
in his pocket, he substituted feigned anger for 
the real, partly for effect, partly to cover his 
increasing curiosity concerning a paragraph 
missing in two copies of the same paper. 

Creed, too, at first surprised and gratified 
to find the paragraph so unexpectedly miss- 
ing, began to reflect that if it had been cut 


A NEWSPAPER PARAGRAPH 


13 


out, the person who had taken the trouble to 
cut it out might probably prove vastly 
troublesome to him. 

“ Who’s been a-cuttin’ of this here paper ? ” 
wheezed Guernsey. Creed listened atten- 
tively as Dodson, much crestfallen, said : 
“ No one as I know, sir, leastwise I didn’t, 
sir. Murden had it.” 

“ Where did you git it ? ” repeated Guern- 
sey in short puffs. It distressed him to exert 
himself even in pretending to be angry. 

“ Mike Murden he had it, — he takes it at 
the store, sir — it was in the wrapper when I 
see Mike open it.” 

Guernsey, secure in the knowledge that 
he had the missing paragraph, allowed his 
anger to simmer away in grunts and snorts ; 
but Joshua Creed bit his thin lips and pon- 
dered in silence while the buckboard rolled 
on toward the Sweet-Fern Distilling Com- 
pany’s plant, thirty miles away — thirty long 
dusty miles from the nearest railroad — the 
Sunset division of* the Ulster & Chenango 


14 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


Railway which swung into the tunnel below 
the water-tower at Murphy’s shanty. 

“ So it was the time-table, eh ? ” observed 
Guernsey solely to irritate Creed. He might 
better have kept his mouth closed. 

“ Yes, sir, — that’s where the time-table is, 
in the Star , sir,” replied Dodson. 

“Eh? Well — I guess that’s true,” said 
Guernsey, blankly. He had suddenly rec- 
ollected that the time-table of the U. & C. 
was always in that identical spot in the Star ) 
and he looked uncomfortably at Creed. Had 
he been making a fool of himself after all ? 
Still, why should Creed take such pains to 
dispose of a time-table? 

“ I’ve got it in my vest-pocket anyway,” 
he reflected, “ and I’ll jest see what there is 
in that time-table besides misinformation for 
the public.” 

“ Have a cigar, Joshua ? ” he inquired af- 
fably, hoping against hope that Creed might 
refuse. 

And again the luck of the Guernseys’ 


A NEWSPAPER PARAGRAPH 15 

stood by him, for Creed mistook the offer 
for a request, and hastily placed a cigar in 
his mouth with the acid information that it 
was his last. 

“ Selfish annermal,” thought Guernsey, 
“like a swimmin’ pig he cuts his own 
throat.” 

“ Cornin’ events cast their shadows afore,” 
he said aloud, willing to make Creed un- 
easy. 

“ Depends on the sun, which way the 
shadow’s cast,” replied Creed. 

“ Air you acquainted with the workin’ of 
the sun, Joshua Creed?” inquired Guern- 
sey, suavely. 

“ There was,” said Creed, grimly, “ a in- 
dividool called Joshua who monkeyed some 
with that there planet.” 

Guernsey relapsed into inertia ; presently 
he snored, head wagging fatly with the 
swaying buckboard. 

Joshua Creed’s eyes also were closed, but 
he was thinking of Murden and wondering 


1 6 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

why he had not only cut the time-table from 
the Mohawk County Star , but had also in- 
cluded in his clipping an obscure paragraph 
of three lines relating to a contemplated 
improvement on the Ulster & Chenango 
Railway. 

“ Perhaps,” mused Creed, “ he done it by 
accident. If he didn’t I’ll run him out of 
Mohawk County purty blame quick ! ” 

It was dusk as the buckboard passed the 
Spook Bridge below Sark’s. Guernsey still 
slept, moaning and grunting in his slumber ; 
Creed was awake, thin lips still gripping an 
unsmoked cigar. 

He looked earnestly up at the lights in 
Sark’s windows, then his eyes wandered to 
the dusky moorland beyond where, in the 
night, acres of sweet-fern perfumed the June 
air — acres and acres of it — at $5 a ton, raw, 
— thirty long dusty miles from the nearest 
railroad. 

Guernsey’s troubled sleep gave him bad 
dreams ; he murmured thickly : “ Two dol- 


A NEWSPAPER PARAGRAPH 17 

lars profit per ton — an’ thirty miles from 
the railway.” 

Creed’s acrid sneer gave place to a 
leer. 

“ Double it for clear profit on every ton — 
if the railroad was built to Amber Lake — 
you fat-headed, stall-fed Holstein ! ” 

“ Hey ! ” wheezed Guernsey, waking — 
“ eh ? — oh, we’re at the Spook Bridge ! My 
stomach hurts.” 

“ Go to sleep,” muttered Creed, “ you’ve 
a mile and a half yet ; ” and Guernsey 
groaned and gurgled and presently snored 
heavily. 

“ Who is this man, John Sark, Dodson ? ” 
asked Creed, as they swung into the lake 
road below Sark’s house. 

“ Mr. Sark, sir ? Oh, he keeps hot-houses 
for to breed silk-worms, sir, and they do say 
he raises butterflies, too, though I don’t 
rightly know what for, sir.” 

“ He’s a naturalist,” said Creed ; “ he 
makes reports to Washington. That isn’t 


18 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

what I mean ; I want to know what he is — 
where he comes from ? ” 

“ He comes from abroad, sir — London, 
they say, though he’s a American, too, for 
that matter, being as he was in the army.” 

“Rich?” 

“ They say so, sir.” 

“ And he bought that house from Harvey 
Ember ? ” 

“ Yes, sir.” 

“And the land?” 

“Yes, sir — for a song.” 

“ All Ember’s tract ? Sweet-fern an’ 
all?” 

“ Yes, sir. But he won’t cut it. Murden 
he says that Mr. Sark is rich enough with- 
out peddlin’ sweet-fern.” 

Creed noted the impudence but let it go 
unrebuked. Anyway Dodson was Guern- 
sey’s coachman and he couldn’t reach him. 
Besides, sweet-fern essence at two dollars 
profit a ton had given him his hundred 
thousands ; he could afford to listen to 


A NEWSPAPER PARAGRAPH 


l 9 


coachmen’s impudence. What he wanted 
was the five dollars per ton that was wasted 
in chemicals, wages, and thirty dusty miles 
of transportation to the railway through 
Sark’s land and over Sark’s private road. 

He could not get all of it ; chemicals and 
wages must be paid for — but both were 
cheap ; it was the transportation that cost. 

“ Now if that there railroad, sir ” 

began Dodson. 

“Shut up, you whelp!” snapped Creed 
so suddenly that Dodson nearly fell off his 
seat, and Guernsey awoke with an apoplectic 
cough. 

“ We’re at your place,” said Creed briefly ; 
“ git out, Dan’l.” 

“ Hey ? How ? Well — er — are you goin’ 
to stay all night with us ? ” inquired Guern- 
sey ungraciously. u I’ll have Dodson drive 
you over to your place if you can’t stay.” 

“ I’ll walk,” replied Creed, getting out 
stiffly, valise in hand ; “ here’s your niece ; 
good night.” 


20 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


“ What is there for dinner ? ” was Guern- 
sey’s greeting as his niece appeared by the 
great gate. “ Here, kiss me if you want to ; 
now run in an’ tell aunty I’m a-comin’ an’ 
hungry, too — run away, ’Lida — Dodson, my 
bag ! — where’s Creed ? ” 

“ Mr. Creed has went home, sir,” said 
Dodson, haughtily ; “ which he called me a 
whelp, sir.” 

“ Hey ? — Well, I guess you are. Git 
that bag into the house p. d. q. Didn’t you 
hear me say I want to eat ? — hey ! ’Lida, 
jest you tell ’em I’m cornin’ an’ hungry, too.” 

He waddled into the house ; Dodson 
slammed the drive gate and followed with 
the rugs and valise, unconscious that Creed, 
outside the rose-hedged fence, was watching 
the scene. 

“ Corn-fed hog,” muttered Creed, picking 
up his own valise ; “ I guess I’ll go into the 
president business myself before long; I 
guess I’ll have time to feed a little, too, 
then.” 


A NEWSPAPER PARAGRAPH 21 

And, instead of taking the road back to 
his own homestead, where his son and his 
dinner awaited him, he turned into the foot- 
path that led past the Distillery down the 
hollow to Murden’s store. 

To his surprise the store was dark, doors 
and shutters closed. He looked around at 
the huts where the Distillery employees 
lived ; there were no lights. He went to 
Dagberg’s, to Mitchel’s ; all was dark and 
silent, and it was not yet eight o’clock. 
Once he called : “ Murden ! ” There was 
no response. He stood a moment, thought- 
ful, a trifle worried, looking out over the 
dusky Barrens. Somewhere out there Em- 
ber’s shanty lay ; but it was too far, and a 
man might lose his way in the Barrens, 
even by day. 

“ Murden ! Dagberg ! ” he called once 
more. 

“ They’ve gone to the lake to set lines,” 
he mused, and turned away toward the high- 
road. 


22 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


And, as lie walked, once or twice lie imag- 
ined he heard the distant gallop of hoofs, 
far out on the Barrens. 

“ I guess not,” he muttered, “ nobody 
hunts ’coons in June.” 

He lingered a moment, undecided, then 
turned back and stretched his lean power- 
ful legs over the dark road he knew so 
well ; and, as he walked, he thought of 
those three lines he had torn from the Mo- 
hawk County Star ) in order that his old 
friend and partner, Daniel Guernsey, might 
not read them. 

But, at that very moment, Daniel Guern- 
sey was searching his waistcoat pocket for 
a crumpled bit of newspaper containing 
those very same lines. He found the soiled 
scrap of paper, and putting on his glasses, 
he carefully smoothed out the clipping on 
the table under the lamp and read slowly, 
tracing each word with a fat forefinger : 

“ The Sunset Div. of the U. & C. have 
decided to extend their railroad to Market - 


A NEWSPAPER PARAGRAPH 23 

ville with stations at Amber Lake , Weazel- 
town , tfTzaT Heavy Falls . Contracts for the 
work have been let A 

“ Thunder an’ lightnin’ ! ” bawled Guern- 
sey waddling wildly to the door ; “ John 
Sark’s land is worth a million, an’ he don’t 
know it, an’ Joshua Creed does ! ” 



! ; i 


CHAPTER II 


TROUBLE BEGINS 

DESCRIBING TWO DISPUTES WHICH ENDED 
MOST MELODIOUSLY 

That same night, Harvey Ember, stand- 
ing in the doorway of his unpainted house 
far out on the Barrens, heard the dull tattoo 
of horses’ hoofs across the star-lit waste. 

Few people rode the Barrens, even by 
day ; nobody rode, night or day, beyond the 
frontier of that boundless desolation. His 
house marked the frontier ; there were no 
clearings beyond, nothing of civilisation. 

Ember listened, then raised his head. 
Dissipation had marred it, but it was still a 
distinguished profile that he turned to the 

wind as the thudding of hoofs sounded 
24 


TROUBLE BEGINS 


25 


nearer and nearer. Suddenly two horsemen 
took shape in the darkness close before him ; 
they were upon him before he could move, 
throwing their horses back on their haunches 
and springing to the porch beside him. 

“ Ember ! ” called one of the horsemen ; 
“ don’t look like that, man ! It’s me, Mike 
Murden ! — and that’s Dagberg ! What’s the 
matter with you ? ” he continued, shaking 
Ember’s arm ; “I guess you ain’t scared of 
us, are you ? ” 

“ No,” said Ember sullenly ; “ let go my 
arm, Murden.” 

He disengaged himself, and shot a sharp 
glance at Dagberg. 

“ I don’t want to talk to you,” he said 
ungraciously ; “ anyway Rose is in there.” 

“ I guess you’ve got more than one room 
to your shanty, haven’t you?” asked Mur- 
den, calmly. “ Send your daughter into the 
kitchen ; I’ve got to talk to you — and I 
will.” 

His strong, heavy face was not exactly 


26 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


menacing — it seldom was — with Ember. 
But Ember had never yet withstood his will, 
and he did not withstand it now. 

“ Come on ! ” repeated Murden, breath- 
ing heavily. 

Then the weak streak in Ember showed, 
for he began to swear at Murden, saying he 
never would listen to any more schemes ; 
cursing Dagberg, too, for a bigger fool than 
the usual run of Germans ; but all the while 
he was walking slowly into the house, both 
men behind him knowing perfectly well 
that it would end by their having their 
way with him. 

“ Oh, shut up,” said Murden with good- 
natured contempt ; “ don’t act like an ass, 
Harve.” 

“ I’ll act as I please ! ” said Ember, turn- 
ing on him fiercely. 

“ Well, well,” said Murden, “ let it go at 
that, Harve.” And Ember, muttering re- 
bellion, led the way to a room that served 
as dining-room and parlour. 


TROUBLE BEGINS 


27 


It was a pretty room, bright as a flower 
with chintz and rugs and a few bits of silver 
and mahogany strangely out of place in an 
unpainted two-storied shanty on the edge of 
the Barrens. They had belonged to Ember 
when he lived in the house now occupied by 
John Sark. 

“ Where is Miss Ember? ” asked Murden 
in a respectful voice. 

“ I don’t know unless she’s in the kitchen 
washing up the dishes.” This was not true ; 
Harvey Ember’s daughter had not yet come 
back from Sark’s, but Ember shrank from 
saying so for several reasons. 

“ What the devil do you want anyway ?” 
he said, turning on Dagberg with a scowl. 

The German, a sour, stunted fellow with 
great hairy hands and bandy legs, looked 
sullenly across at Murden. The latter opened 
his heavy jaws as if about to speak, but 
Ember cut him short. 

“ I won’t go into this thing ; the man has 
treated me badly but I won’t risk jail to pay 


28 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


him off. Now,” he added, with weak triumph 
on his face, “ what have you got to say, Mike 
Murden ? ” 

“ I’ve got to say this,” said Murden ; 
“ there’s a million of good dollars growing 
wild on them hills of John Sark’s — hills 
that was yours once, Harve Ember — hills 
that you sold for half the value of the 
taxes.” 

“ Don’t I know it ? ” said Ember irritably. 
“ Let me alone, Murden.” 

“ You made a fool mit yourself ; vat you 
tink, eh?” demanded Dagberg. 

“ He paid all I asked him,” said Ember 
in a sudden spasm of justness — adding 
however: “ Sark is no friend of mine and I 
don’t care what happens to him.” 

“ Come, come, Harve,” said Murden with 
heavy familiarity ; “ there’s a million in 
sweet-fern on them hills the day the U. & 
C. build their road to Amber Lake. Are 
you going to let it rot there ? You’ve scarce- 
ly the price of a drink in your pants. Are you 


TROUBLE BEGINS 


2 9 

goin’ to let John Sark wake up to find he’s 
doubled his million at your expense ? ” 

“ He won’t sell, I tell you,” said Ember 
doggedly. 

“ He’ll sell if he gets his price,” said Mur- 
den ; “he don’t know the railroad means to 
build and he won’t know it, for I wiped out 
them three lines before I forwarded him his 
newspaper. That land ain’t worth nothin’ 
to him — now ; it wa’n’t worth nothin’ to him 
when he bought it; he bought it out of 
charity ” 

“ You lie ! ” said Ember flushing darkly ; 
“he bought it because I wouldn’t sell my 
house without the land. He wanted the 
house and he had to take the land.” 

“Well, well,” said Murden, with his easy, 
unruffled humour, “ the p’int is this, Harve ; 
we want that land, and we are goin’ to git 
it!” 

Murden’s dialect always increased with 
his apparent good English; but, when fu- 
rious, which was an indulgence he rarely 


30 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


granted himself, his speech was curiously 
tinged with an Irish brogue. 

“ Harve,” said Murden suddenly, “ you’ve 
got to buy that land. He promised to sell 
it to you, if you ever wanted it back.” 

Ember glanced nervously at Dagberg, 
then dropped his head and began drumming 
on the table with cigarette-stained fingers. 
There was a bottle on the table ; Murden 
went to the sideboard and brought back three 
tumblers. 

“ I have no money,” said Ember, accept- 
ing a glass of whisky and water from Mur- 
den. He drank the contents of the glass, 
suffering Murden to refill it. 

“ Dagberg, Con Nolan, Spike Mitchel and 
me, — we have made up a purse,” said Mur- 
den dropping his voice. “ When you get the 
land, you go hunks on a million with us 
five gents. Ain’t that right, Fritz? ” 

“ Sure,” replied Dagberg, wiping his 
stubby beard on the back of his great hairy 
fist. 


TROUBLE BEGINS 


3i 


“ Well — what do you want me to do?” 
snarled Ember, already beaten, knowing that 
Murden despised his weakness, but totally 
incapable of withstanding the heavy will of 
the men. 

“ I want you to go to Sark and tell him 
you want to buy back your land. Give him 
some game about lovin’ the flowers an’ trees 
of the old homestead. See ? We’ve got the 
money ; your business is to get the land, — 
and get it quick ! ” 

“ You don’t want me to go to-night, do 
you ? ” snapped Ember. 

“ Well, I guess yes, sez John ! ” replied 
Murden, laughing. “ Do you think I’m go- 
ing to leave a million out over night ? What’s 
to prevent that old screw Guernsey from 
readin’ the paper at the Water Tower to- 
night ? I rubbed out the item in his paper 
and in Creed’s and in all I could get. But 
they send the Star to Murphy’s shanty by 
mail and I had no time to get that.” 

“ You’d go to jail if they found that you’d 


32 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


been fooling with the mails,” said Ember, 
He did not raise his eyes as he spoke ; if he 
had he would have seen in Murden’s light- 
coloured eyes an expression that meant mur- 
der. The awful light died out before Mur- 
den spoke again, recovering his easy serene 
tones without visible effort : 

“ I’m postmaster and storekeeper at Amber 
Lake, and I guess I show my faith in my 
friends by doin’ what I have did,” he said 
with dignity. “ Is there skunks among my 
friends, Harve Ember ? ” 

“ No,” replied Ember hastily. 

The thought of treachery had never en- 
tered his mind and now, at the covert sug- 
gestion of such a possibility, he found him- 
self more strongly committed to Murden 
and his schemes than before. He was 
already in a secret shared by five ; he was 
already a party to conspiracy. Even should 
he refuse and draw out, he would still bear 
his burden of the secret, and perhaps the 
responsibility for success or failure, without 


TROUBLE BEGINS 


33 


sharing possible profits. The outlook was 
unattractive ; he was too inert, too apathetic 
in character to willingly enter any scheme 
that required thought and exertion, or that 
entailed watchfulness or risk. Not that he 
was a physical coward as he was a mental one ; 
he stopped at nothing when once set in 
motion ; and like many weak characters, 
when goaded by a stronger influence, he was 
capable of attempting anything. 

Once roused and driven into action, weak 
natures, unable to sustain the impetus, be- 
come merged in the will that drives them. 

There were two things that influenced 
Ember, — Murden, and drink. He had never 
resisted either very long ; it was not likely 
he would resist them combined. Murden 
had moulded him for years; Murden had 
driven him to forgery ; Murden had kept 
him in drink ; Murden had loaned him 
money, taking city land as security until 
payment fell due. Then he had taken the 
security, but without losing his grip on his 
3 


34 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


victim. And so at last Harvey Ember bad 
come to be bis creature. Tbe very sbanty 
in tbe Barrens belonged to Murden ; every- 
thing in it was Murden’s, too, except Rose 
Ember ; — and be expected to acquire ber in 
time, but as yet be had carefully avoided 
broaching that subject to either Miss Ember 
or ber father. Did Ember suspect it ? Was 
that why he shrank from telling Murden 
that Rose had not yet left Sark’s ? Weak 
natures recoil from sounding the shallows 
of their own characters ; weak minds refrain 
from mental surveys. 

Ember drank and brooded, doggedly aware 
that Dagberg and Murden were awaiting his 
pleasure. He filled his glass slowly, drained 
it slowly, enjoying the weak triumph of 
keeping his masters waiting. 

Murden humoured him ; he and Dagberg, 
seeing that the game was theirs, began a 
whispered consultation that lasted long 
enough to irritate Ember’s vanity. 

“ Stop that ! ” he said thickly ; “ if I’m in 


TROUBLE BEGINS 35 

this thing, say so, — if I’m not, drop that 
side talk, do you hear ? ” 

“ Certainly, Harve,” said Murden readily, 
“ and” — looking at his great silver watch — 
“ I think you had better start before Sark 
prowls off after dinner with his bull’s-eye 
lantern and that fool of a professor.” And 
at last Ember consented to put on his hat. 

Murden watched him narrowly, regret- 
ting that he had allowed Ember so much 
liquor. 

“You understand the importance of 
this ? ” he asked, as Ember passed him 
toward the open door. 

“I want no advice,” said Ember; “give 
me that glass, do you hear ? ” 

He drank again, slowly, with a malicious 
side glance at Murden. Then he set the 
glass on the table. 

“Suppose,” he said, “that Sark won’t 
sell.” 

“ He will — to you,” replied Murden coolly. 

“ All right ; but suppose he won’t ? ” 


36 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


Murden glanced across the table at Dag- 
berg. The latter returned his glance fero- 
ciously. 

“ In that case,” observed Murden, “ he 
will have to quit that land — and the country 
too.” 

Ember’s morose face grew sharper. “ What 
do yon mean ? ” he demanded. 

“ I mean — the White Riders,” said Mur- 
den with a laugh. 

After a pause, Ember said : “ There are 
only six of us.” 

“ There’s all Weazeltown to draw from — 
for a dollar a Weazel,” said Murden. 

“ You mean to run him out ? ” 

“Something of that sort.” 

“ And make him sell ? ” 

“ I rather guess so.” 

Ember, sober for the moment, stared from 
Murden to Dagberg. 

“ Suppose you can’t ? ” 

“ I guess,” said Murden amiably, “ that a 
million is worth trying for. But it ain’t 


TROUBLE BEGINS 


3 7 


going to come to that : he’ll sell you back 
your land if you weep a lot over the old 
old homestead.” 

Ember turned on his heel and left the 
house. Passing the two horses hitched to 
the porch post, he hesitated, then sheered 
to the south and struck out into the dark- 
ness. 

In the unpainted house Murden and Dag- 
berg waited. Neither spoke. Dagberg, 
with animal curiosity, let his bleared Teu- 
tonic eyes wander over the pretty interior 
of the room, his dull intelligence grappling 
with its details. There was a piano there, 
books in chintz-bordered shelves, a woman’s 
work-table covered with silks and yarn, a 
sewing machine, and a dainty mahogany 
desk. Dining-room, parlour, library and 
sitting-room in one, the square chamber was 
still attractive and pretty if a trifle incon- 
gruous. 

Murden paid little attention to the room. 
Once he drank a swallow of undiluted 


33 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


whisky, and offered the bottle to Dagberg 
in silence. 

There was scarcely a sound in the house 
save the heavy breathing of the German. 
Outside the horses stamped impatiently 
beside the porch. A gilt clock over the fire- 
place ticked in the stillness. An hour 
passed ; Dagberg was breathing deeply, on 
the borders of that heavy slumber that men 
of his kind never cross. He slept awake, 
as burly dogs sleep ; he heard the clock tick 
and the snort of his horse from the porch, 
but he slept, nevertheless, a fierce, alert, 
dreamless sleep that breaks at the echo of a 
whisper. 

The second hour had scarcely ended in a 
tiny chime from the gilt clock when Ember 
lurched into the room, and snatched his 
glass from the table. Dagberg, whose great 
fist had already closed on the weapon in 
his pocket, glared at him in silence ; Mur- 
den’s heavy jaw tightened until the muscles 
stood out under his cheek bones. 


TROUBLE BEGINS 


39 


“ Well, Harve?” lie said quietly. 

“ He won’t sell ! ” cried Ember, turning 
on bim. “ He sat there a-looking at me while 
I made a fool of myself with the homestead 
business. Then he nodded and said he’d sell 
my land back to me if I was so fond of it, — 
on one condition, — and that was that I must 
promise never to share it or its profits with 
anybody but my daughter. Then,” contin- 
ued Ember, clenching his fist, “ I told him 
I’d do as I pleased with anything I owned, 
and he told me to take it or leave it on his 
conditions.” 

“ He insulted you,” said Murden thought- 
fully. 

“ He did ! — by heavens ! he did,” said 
Ember, thickly ; “lama gentleman as well 
as he ! I told him so ; I told him it was an 
insult ! Then he looked at me, damn him ! 
— he looked at me as if I were drunk ! ” 

Murden said nothing ; Dagberg, unmoved, 
shoved his weapon deeper into his side 
pocket, and gaped into the empty fireplace. 


40 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


“ One thing,” said Ember, striking the 
table with his double fist, “ Rose shall never 
enter his door again ! ” 

“ Are you crazy ? ” said Murden sharply ; 
“ she must go. And you must go too — to- 
morrow — and apologize for being drunk as 
a fiddler’s wench.” 

Then Ember fell into a rage so violent 
that it annoyed even the stolid Dagberg ; and 
he went out to the porch, preferring the quiet 
of the star-lit Barrens to the tumult within. 

When, a few minutes later, Murden and 
Ember joined him, it was plain that Murden 
had had his way again. 

Harve,” he said, mounting his horse 
with the lazy agility of a puma, “ he’s prom- 
ised to sell you the land ; wait till to-mor- 
row when you’re sober, and then go to him 
and tell him how sorry you are that you 
was drunk and disorderly. Tell him you 
won’t share the profits with nobody except 
Rose, and I’ll fix it up all right after you 
get the land.” 


TROUBLE BEGINS 


4i 


“ And — suppose lie won’t sell? ” 

“ Then the White Riders will meet once 
more I guess,” laughed Murden. 

“ If you’re going to meet I suppose you’ll 
meet here, won’t you ? ” asked Ember fret- 
fully. 

“ Naturally,” said Murden in his placid 
voice. “You know the call ? Make it, 
Dagberg.” 

The German threw his heavy head back ; 
from between his coarse lips a low sweet 
bird-note floated, strangely melodious and 
tender. 

With a gesture, half menace, half caution, 
Murden wheeled his horse out into the waste 
of star-lit moorland ; Dagberg followed ; 
darkness blotted them out from Ember’s 
sight long before the drumming hoof-beats 
died away in the night’s blue solitude. 

At a motion from Murden they wheeled 
east when they reached the creek. 

“ I ain’t easy, Fritz,” whispered Murden ; 
“ something tells me to ride by Sark’s. 


42 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


But,” he added, “ we’ll keep to the Barrens ; 
I don’t want to meet any one along the road 
to-night.” 

The lights of Sark’s, on the hill above the 
Spook Bridge, guided them. They dis- 
mounted in the alders at the foot of the hill, 
and Dagberg took the bridles. 

“ I’ll be back in a few minutes,” motioned 
Murden ; “ I’ll give the call if I want you 
quick ; ” and he started silently up the hill. 
Suddenly he crouched ; a dark form loomed 
up in silhouette against Sark’s lighted 
windows. The figure approached him — a 
woman, walking straight out into the Bar- 
rens. When she had passed he stood up 
and gazed after her. He knew her ; she 
was Ember’s daughter, Rose. 

“ The lying fool,” thought Murden, 
“ afraid to tell me Rose was at Sark’s. I 
guess that shows he knows what I’m after,” 
he mused complacently, and crept up to the 
dark house on the hill. 

He had come from sheer instinct, yet he 


TROUBLE BEGINS 


43 


scarcely expected to find anything of inter- 
est there. He prowled around the house 
once, then, inserting his strong fingers be- 
tween the slats of the blinds which closed 
the windows of Sark’s parlour, cautiously 
opened them. 

What he saw deprived him of breath for 
a moment ; he stood spellbound, eyes start- 
ing from their narrow sockets. After a 
second or two he noiselessly unhooked the 
blinds, crept nearer, slowly and stealthily 
raised the sash, and, squatting under the 
window, listened. Sark was speaking; he 
heard every word : 

“ I do not understand why you, Mr. 
Guernsey, or you, Mr. Creed, have come 
here to-night to offer me much more than 
my land is worth. Doubtless you know 
where your interest lies ; I am not prepared 
to say that the land may not be worth to you 
more than you offer. What your reasons 
may be I shall not question ; I simply do 
not care to sell.” 


44 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


“ It’s agin’ all reason ! ” said Guernsey, 
exasperated. “ Ain’t I offerin’ you ten times 
what you paid Harve Ember ! I want the 
sweet-fern, an’ I expect to pay for it. You’ve 
got me ; you can fix your price. The crop 
is run low on our side of the lake, an’ we’ve 
orders at the Distillery for ten times our 
crop. Come, come, Mr. Sark, name your 
price an’ me an’ Creed will swaller our 
medicine.” 

“ Mr. Guernsey,” replied Sark ; “ I am 
not a shopkeeper. Profit and loss concern 
me little, speculation is equally unattractive. 
I came here to get away from people who 
buy and sell ; I have no desire to increase 
my income, to invest any money, or to argue 
with you concerning my reasons or my pri- 
vate affairs. I speak plainly because neither 
you nor Mr. Creed have ever before shown 
me the slightest courtesy — no — not even the 
decent recognition of a neighbour. I came 
here alone, and you took pains to add to my 
inconveniences, because you feared a com- 


TROUBLE BEGINS 


45 


petitor. You practically closed Murden’s 
store to me, compelling me to pay heavily 
for transportation. 

“ In return I have never molested you, 
even when your men cut fern on my land. 
I permit yon to use my private road to the 
Water Tower ; I never interfere with your 
cattle when yon pasture them on my hills. 
But there is one thing I will not permit, 
and that is any invasion of my privacy. I 
am glad to have yon as neighbours, I am 
glad to extend every courtesy in my power, 
I am very willing to remain friendly with 
you. But I must refuse to sell my land, 
and I trust you will not find, in my refusal, 
a reason for offence.” 

“ Mr. Sark,” blurted out Guernsey, “ I’ll 
give you half a million dollars for your 
land.” 

There was a silence ; Murden, under the 
window, set his white teeth. 

“ Are you mad ? ” said Sark’s cool voice. 

“ Well, if I am I guess it won’t cost you 


4 6 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

nothin’,” wheezed Guernsey. “ I stand Here 
offerin’ you Half a million for them fern- 
lands, — and Joshua Creed is my witness. 
You drove me to it — it ain’t business nohow 
— but the offer is made and I stand by it ! ” 
There was another pause. Presently 
Sark said : “I would do it, and move away 
with pleasure. I’m tired of the place ; it is 
too full of buying and selling and money- 
making and starvation wages, to be agree- 
able to me. I sought quiet; I find Mr. 
Guernsey and Mr. Creed wringing dollars 
out of the edge of the wilderness. Yes, I 
would be glad to go somewhere else. But I 
cannot sell the land, and I will tell you why. 
Mr. Ember sold it to me ; he cares for it, I 
fancy, and I promised him, if he ever was 
ready to buy it, that he should have it at 
the price I paid him for it, — under a certain 
condition. This very evening he came, 
viciously drunk, to ask for it. I said he 
might have it for himself and his daughter. 
He was impudent and I turned him out. 


TROUBLE BEGINS 


47 


Now, if you wish to buy the land of Ember, 
I shall not interfere. I will sell him the 
. land again as I promised, and he may sell 
it to yon for your half million if he wishes. 
But there are two conditions : first, every 
cent of the money yon pay him must be in- 
vested in his daughter’s name, not to be 
touched without her consent ; second : that 
I am not to be disturbed in this place for one 
year, beginning with to-morrow morning.” 

“ I witness that there bargain,” broke in 
Creed’s hard dry voice. 

Guernsey fairly bellowed his satisfaction, 
interrupting Creed’s eager suggestions, un- 
til Murden, doubled up under the window, 
silently cursed him for a bawling bull-calf. 

Out of the tumult came Sark’s clean cut 
voice, presently : 

“ My word is sufficient, Mr. Creed ; if 
you don’t put that pen and ink down I shall 
be obliged to show you the door.” 

At last the two financiers, apparently 
satisfied, moved toward the outer hallway, 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


and Murden, gathering himself together, 
crept like a shadow under the fence and 
sprang down the hillside, but not towards 
the alders where Dagberg and the horses 
were hidden. Instead, he skirted Sark’s 
three hot-houses, swung north, jumped the 
spring brook, and hurried down the road to 
the Spook Bridge. 

Scarcely had he leaped lightly upon the 
bridge, when the sound of wheels warned 
him, and he saw the lights of Guernsey’s 
double buggy rounding the hill below 
Sark’s. 

Guernsey and Creed were disputing as 
they drove up, charging each other with 
greed and bad faith. Neither had lost a 
moment in using the information that the 
Star had given them, and both were amazed 
and enraged to meet in Sark’s parlour bound 
on the same errand. 

“You alters was a bran-fed hog ! ” said 
Creed, closing the dispute. “ Mind where 
you’re a-drivin’ ; Dan’l, — look out ! ” 


TROUBLE BEGINS 


49 

At that instant Murden laid his hand on 
the horse’s bridle. 

“ Who’s that ? ” cried Guernsey, fright- 
ened. 

“ It’s Murden,” said Creed, peering ahead ; 
“ want a lift, Mike ? ” 

“ Yes, I want a lift,” replied Murden, 
springing lightly into the broad seat behind 
them. “ I want more, too,” he added. 

“ Eh ? ” queried Creed, shutting his lean 
jaw in alarm. 

“ And I won’t waste no time about it,” 
continued Murden, calmly ; “I want to be 
took in as third partner on that fern deal, 
share and share alike. No use looking at 
me like a scared screech-owl ; I mean it. 
Take me in and the deal’s a go ; crowd me 
out and Ember won’t pay one cent for the 
land nor sell it to yon either ! ” 

After a long silence, broken at times by 
the startled spasmodic grunts of Guernsey, 
Creed drew rein. 

“ Yon can git out, Murden,” he said. 

4 


50 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


“ There ain’t no power on earth to prevent 
me tendin’ Ember the money for to buy 
that land, an’ there ain’t no power on earth 
to prevent him from pocketin’ his half mil- 
lion. You can’t do nothin’ ! Harm him 
and I’ll jail ye ! Blackmail me and into 
jail yon go ! Sark’s word is good as U. S. 
bonds. Go an’ tell him the railroad is a- 
comin’, and he won’t budge from his word, — 
no, not for fifty millions ! So,” he added, 
“ you can jest git out, Mr. Mnrden, an’ 
mosey to hell at your perlite convenience ! ” 

Murden quietly descended. “ I ask yon 
again to let me in, share and share,” he said. 

“ An’ again I sez perlitely,” replied Creed, 
“ do your wust ! ” 

“ If you don’t,” said Murden, “ that deal 
is dead ! ” 

“ Drive on, Dan’l,” said Creed grimly ; 
“ the night air ain’t good for Mr. Murden’s 
delicate lungs.” 

“ You won’t?” repeated Murden. “I 
warn yon I can stop that deal.” 


TROUBLE BEGINS 


5i 


“ When you do it,” replied Creed, 
“ there’ll be skatin’ in hell.” 

And Guernsey, reassured, gathered up 
the reins into his fat hands and drove on. 
Murden looked after them until their side- 
lights disappeared around the lake thickets. 
Then, for he had much to do before morn- 
ing, he started swiftly back toward the alder 
thickets where Dagberg and the horses were 
waiting. A moment later a low thrilling 
bird-call floated out over the misty Barrens. 


CHAPTER III 


trouble continues 

IN WHICH JOHN SARK LEARNS SOMETHING 
CONCERNING THE METHODS OE EXPERTS 
IN FINANCE 

The next morning, just as Rose Ember 
was leaving her father’s unpainted house 
on the Barrens, Joshua Creed and Daniel 
Guernsey drove furiously up to the porch. 
There was no road to Ember’s from the lake, 
and the drive over the spongy tussocks and 
stunted shrubs of the waste had shaken 
Guernsey into a demoralised mass of moan- 
ing flesh smothered, at intervals, by a 
buffalo robe. He emerged as the dog-cart 
stopped, and, at the same moment, Rose 

Ember came out of the door. 

52 


TROUBLE CONTINUES 


53 


“ Is your pa in? ” asked Guernsey, sourly, 
as Rose passed, giving both men a quiet 
glance of recognition. She stopped short, 
looking from Creed to Guernsey with a 
singular intentness that puzzled the 
former. 

“ I guess you know who I am?” ob- 
served Creed, with a hard grimace that was 
meant for civility. 

“ Yes,” said Rose Ember, recovering her 
composure. 

“ Wa-al,” cut in Guernsey, “ I asked you 
was your pa in, didn’t I ? ” 

“ Why do you wish to see Mr. Ember ? ” 
replied Rose. 

“Business,” said Creed, trying to smile 
till it hurt his hard jaw. “ A word,” he con- 
tinued playfully, “ which ain’t in the bright 
lexicon of the fair sect ; ” and he executed 
a wink with one horny eyelid. 

“ It’s all the same if he’s drunk,” added 
Guernsey brutally ; “ as long as he can sign 
his name he’ll do for us, I guess.” 


54 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


A wave of crimson swept over the girl’s 
neck and face. Both hands tightened spas- 
modically, and her eyes filled. But she set 
her teeth, crushing back the tears, and, 
without a word, turned away into the Bar- 
rens. 

Creed swung around to watch the superb 
poise of her splendid young figure, the free 
play of hip and limb, the sunlight on her 
full white neck. 

“ What did you go to insult her for ? ” he 
barked, jerking his head about to face Guern- 
sey. “ You always was a disgustin’ creeter 
with the sect.” 

“Sect be blowed!” observed Guernsey, 
clambering out of the dog-cart and waddling 
into the house without ceremony. 

Creed sat silent, listening to Guernsey’s 
hoarse bellowing for Ember, an angry glit- 
ter in his small sunken eyes. 

In a few moments the president reap- 
peared, mopping his apoplectic face. 

“ He hain’t slep’ here ; I seen his bed. 


TROUBLE CONTINUES 


55 

The drunken fool has went to Murden’s an’ 
that’s what he done, mark my words.” 

“ Git in,” said Creed, thin lips compressed, 
gathering np the reins. 

With groans of distress Guernsey man- 
aged to hoist himself into the dog-cart, and 
Creed turned the horse northward with a 
vicious cut of the whip. 

“ Don’t — don’t bump that way ! Joshua, 
don’t — you — do — it, — or I’ll — git out right 
here ! ” protested Guernsey. 

“ This hain’t no bullyvard,” said Creed, 
contemptuously ; “ bounce and be damned, 
Dan’l Guernsey.” 

Presently he said again : “ And don’t 

you speak to that gal like a hog either, 
Dan’l Guernsey. Perliteness is a jool, you 
fool ! ” 

“ Hey ? ” cried the president, puzzled at 
Creed’s extraordinary urbanity. 

Then a horrible suspicion began to dawn on 
Guernsey. Could the gaunt widower be plot- 
ting a financial manoeuvre to include this 


5 6 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

young girl ? Did Joshua Creed contemplate 
marrying her as soon as she had received her 
half million ? With a third interest in 
Sark’s fern-lands and a wife with half a mil- 
lion as dowry, would Creed be able to play 
him some business trick which his fat brain 
could neither divine nor forestall ? 

“ She’s a huzzy,” said Guernsey, hastily ; 
“ she’s thick with that fellow Sark ; sich gali- 
vantin’ and goin’s-on I never see ! It’s 
scandalous, her a-working for young Sark, 
yes, it is ! ” 

A dull red mantled Creed’s dry cheeks. 

“ Don’t you think so ? ” demanded Guern- 
sey eagerly. 

Creed shut his inflexible jaws. 

“ He means to marry her!” thought 
Guernsey in alarm ; “ I’d be a fool to put 
this deal through and make him rich. Oh, 
Lord, what is he trying to do to me ! ” 

Indignant, thoroughly frightened, dis- 
tracted at the idea of losing the deal, and 
equally afraid to close the bargain with the 


TROUBLE CONTINUES 


5 7 


prospect of Creed’s marrying the girl, Guern- 
sey, hanging frantically to the side-bars of 
the jolting cart, panted and grunted and 
worried until they drew up at Murden’s 
store. What on earth should he do ? He 
must decide quickly. If he had only kept 
a decent tongue in his head he might have 
married the girl himself. Suppose he risked 
it anyway ? He was richer than Creed, — 
younger too. He could smooth any little 
insult out with a check — if it were big 
enough. 

“ So help me heavins ! ” he muttered, 
“ I’ll give him a run for his money — the 
sneakin’ fox! I guess I can do a little 
marry in,’ too ! I guess I know the sect as 
well as him, anyway. I guess ” 

“ Air you comin,’ Dan’l Guernsey ? ” 
asked Creed for the third time. 

Guernsey plunged heavily to the store 
platform, and, wiping his face on his over- 
coat sleeve, entered, followed by Creed. 

There was not much light in the store ; 


58 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


the heavy atmosphere smelled of sugar and 
onions and big dry strings of hams hanging 
in rows over the counter. 

There were two men sitting before the 
cold stove ; one had both feet on the lid, — 
that was Murden ; the other was lying limply 
in his chair, his white, haggard face buried 
in his chest. It was Ember, splashed with 
mud from collar to ankle, sleeping off his 
debauch. 

Creed greeted Murden with a sinister 
side-glance, then, scowling, stepped forward 
and laid his hand on Ember’s shoulder. 
The sleeping man was awake in an instant 
glaring wildly at Creed, who instinctively 
shrank back, not expecting to encounter 
such ferocity without apparent reason. Mur- 
den watched the proceedings with a sombre 
sneer on his heavy face, but said nothing. 

“What do you want?” asked Ember, 
harshly ; — “ oh, it’s you, Joshua Creed, is 
it?” 

“ I want to see you on business,” replied 


TROUBLE CONTINUES 


59 

Creed ; “ will you jest step this way, Mr. 
Ember ” 

u He needn’t,” observed Mnrden, rising 
lazily ; “ I can go out if I’m intruding — in 

my own house.” He yawned, stretched his 
huge frame, passed Guernsey with a con- 
temptuous smile, and sauntered out to the 
road to find a seat on a pile of lumber. His 
position commanded a view of the interior 
of his own store, but he was out of earshot, — 
unless the three men intended to confer in 
shouts. 

Before Joshua Creed had moistened his 
dry lips with his tongue, preliminary to 
broaching the subject of their visit, Ember 
began pettishly : “ There’s no use coming 
to me about that fern-land. I won’t sell it 
when I get it, so you can save yourself the 
trouble of argument. Besides, I’m sleepy.” 

Something resembling partial paralysis 
had taken possession of Guernsey at Ember’s 
first word. Creed, unwilling to credit his 
large mottled ears, gaped stupidly at Ember, 


6o 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


apparently hypnotised by the pallid face 
that confronted bis. 

“ You — won’t — sell ? ” be managed to jerk 
out at last. 

“ No,” said Ember sullenly. 

A bysterical bellow from Guernsey 
drowned Creed’s words for a moment, but he 
raised bis rasping voice and fairly shouted 
in Ember’s face : 

“ Half a million ! Are you crazy ? Don’t 
you want to be rich ? Air you in your right 
mind, Harve Ember ? ” 

“ What good does the half million do 
me ? ” inquired Ember. “ Do you think 
I’m a fool ? I’m not presenting my daughter 
with half a million dollars to please you. 
Crazy? Yes, I would be, to sell a million 
for half a million that I can’t touch. I’ll buy 
my land back — and work it too, without your 
advice, Joshua Creed ! ” 

“ But you hain’t got no capital ! ” bawled 
Guernsey ; “ you can’t go a-working of them 
hills without no plant ! Can he, Joshua ? ” 


TROUBLE CONTINUES 61 

“ If Murden put you up to this,” added 
Creed with a hideous grimace, “it’s because 
he can’t make nothin’ out of this here deal 
and he won’t let you. Now you take my 
offer, Harvey Ember, or I’ll get into that 
there dog-cart an’ I’ll drive to John Sark, an’ 
I’ll jest tell him about that there railroad 
what’s cornin’ to Amber Lake.” 

Ember looked at him coolly : “ I don’t 
care. John Sark’s word is good enough for 
me. And don’t you worry about capital. 
Our company’s formed already ; want to see 
the list ? ” 

He took a bit of brown wrapping paper 
from his pocket and held it up before Creed’s 
little eyes. Then he read, drawling his 
words, and enjoying the silent fury of his 
auditors : 

“ Harvey Ember, Esquire, President. 

“ The Honorable Michael Murden, Vice- 
President. 

“ Mr. Spike Nitchel, Secretary. 

“ Mr. Con Nolan, Treasurer. 


62 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


“ Mr. Fritz Dagberg, Director at large.” 

He slowly folded tbe paper, sat down, and 
crossed bis legs, smiling all tbe time into 
the bard eyes of Joshua Creed. He had 
always feared tbe man, and be found it very 
pleasant to affront him in safety. 

“ My ! ” sneered Creed, “ you think you 
done a smart thing, don’t you, Harve 
Ember?” 

“ Fairly, fairly so,” replied Ember com- 
placently. After a moment, however, the 
irony of Creed’s smile began to make him 
a trifle uneasy, and he wondered whether 
Murden knew what he was about in advising 
him to refuse half a million dollars for a 
few tons of weed on another man’s land. 

“ Air you good at figurin’ ? ” asked Creed 
sarcastically. 

“ I reckon I am,” said Ember, meeting 
his sneer with uncertain eyes : “ what do 
you mean ? ” 

“ I mean jest this. You say that fern is 
worth a million. It ain’t — but let that go. 


TROUBLE CONTINUES 63 

Now I offer you half a million for it. You 
say no. Why? Because you and four 
other men mean to work it. Good ! — very 
good ! So you prefer to take the chance 
of havin’ one-fifth of a million, to the sar- 
tinty of half a million all to yourself. Do 
you ? ’’ 

Ember stood up hastily, his pale face 
twitching : 

“ But I don’t get that half million ; it 
goes to Rose ” 

“ Goes to nothin’, ” said Creed contempt- 
uously ; she ain’t eighteen yet, is she ? 
You leave that to me ; I guess I can fix it 
with the right sort of lawyer.” 

As he spoke, Guernsey who knew his 
fellow-distiller, knew that he was lying — 
knew that Creed intended that Rose Ember 
should have the money, and that she should 
be his wife into the bargain. Should he 
balk the deal? Should he draw back, 
rather than risk the race with Creed for 
Rose Ember’s money ? 


6 4 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


“ Joshua ! ” he blurted out ; but Creed 
turned on him furiously. 

“ Shut up your fat head ! ” he shouted ; 
“ ain’t I doin’ this business ? ” Then he 
veered around like a buzzard, adding argu- 
ment to argument, reason to reason, piling 
logic on logic, till the very force of his violence 
overwhelmed the weaker man, and Ember 
whispered : “ Hush ! Hush ! or you’ll bring 
Murden back.” 

“ Bring him back ! ” cried Creed ; “ what 
do I care for Murden ! He’s tryin’ to rob 
you and you know it ! Go out there and say 
I said so ! Go out and tell him your goin’ 
to sell the land and you know your business ! 
Murden ? What’s he got to do with you 
and your money ” 

“ Hush ! ” said Ember, “ don’t talk like 
that. He’s coming now — he’s coming back. 
Don’t say anything — don’t say a word, I tell 
you ; I’ll do it — I guess — but don’t say 
one word to Murden ” 


He stopped suddenly as Murden strolled 


TROUBLE CONTINUES 65 

into the store, straight up to him and laid a 
heavy hand on his shoulder. 

“ Air you as weak as hog-wash or air you 
not ? ” snarled Creed, seizing Ember’s 
other shoulder. 

Murden turned, pushed Creed into Guern- 
sey with a sudden violence that brought a 
prolonged squeal and a grunt from the fat 
president, and then quietly led Ember into 
the darkened rear of the store, among the 
lumber and barrels and shadowy heaps of 
odds and ends. 

“ What did they say ? ” he asked in a 
pleasant voice. 

“ They said that half a million for Rose 
was better than chancing it for a fifth with 
you and Dagberg and the rest.” 

“ And — what do you think ? ” 

“ Let me alone ! ” said Ember, fling- 
ing off Murden’s hand on his shoulder. 
Then he stepped back, eying Murden sul- 
lenly. 

“ Did they tell you that they would fix it 

5 


66 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


so you could have the money yourself ?” 
asked Murden. 

Ember’s sulky silence was answer enough. 
However, after a moment, he denied it. 

“And you believed it?” continued 
Murden quietly. 

Ember only eyed him askance. 

“ Very well,” said Murden without the 
slightest display of anger. 

Ember started to shamble past him fur- 
tively. 

“ Go on,” said Murden with a good-hu- 
mored laugh ; “ go on and make your bargain 
with Joshua Creed to rob your own daughter. 
You may find time to enjoy your money 
when you’ve done time for that little business 
of the signature, some years ago ” 

Ember fell back, a sick horror on his 
bloodless face. 

“ Done — time ” he gasped. 

“ Yes — done time ! Throw me over and 
I’ll see you do it too ! ” Ember grasped 
at him but he flung him back. 


TROUBLE CONTINUES 67 

“ Is it me ye’ll do ! ” continued Mnrden 
savagely, bursting into tbe brogue that 
always flared out when bis rage was rising. 
“Is it tbricks ye’ll be playin’ on me, ye 
white muzzled son of a whippet! Troth, 
then, I’ll show ye a thrick and a dozen to 
beat it, mark that, me bncky-o ! ” 

And still Ember’s horrified eyes followed 
him as Murden shoved his hands into his 
pockets and started slowly toward the front 
of the store. 

“ Come back,” stammered Ember in a 

whisper; “ Mike, you wouldn’t do that ” 

“ Faith an’ I would, me buck ! ” replied 
Murden, tranquilly lighting a cigar; but 
Ember got him by the arm again and 
dragged him back into the dark among the 
dusty lumber. 

“Who made me do it?” he demanded 
hoarsely ; “ who set me on, Mike Murden ? ” 
There was a savage luminous stare in 
Murden’s eyes that quenched Ember’s 
smouldering fury ; he dropped the arm he 


68 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


was gripping and fell back a step, stum- 
bling among the crates and boxes. 

“ Is it me or you who forged the ” 

“ Hush — don’t, Mike !” pleaded Ember in 
an agonised whisper. 

Murden said nothing more ; he had his 
man where he wanted him. After a moment 
he sat down on a barrel, searching for a 
match to relight his cigar. 

“Pm only saving you from being a fool,” 
he said, unconsciously shedding his brogue 
with his anger. “ Sit still a moment, 
Harve. Now, — here’s a cigar — let that old 
buzzard Creed wait — I guess it won’t hurt 
him to cool his claws while I have my 
turn — ” 

At that moment Guernsey bawled out that 
he wouldn’t wait another moment. 

“ Oh, I guess you will,” called Murden 
from the back of the store. Then he turned 
to Ember pleasantly : 

“We have the game in our own hands ; 
Sark has promised you to sell ; we’ve got the 


TROUBLE CONTINUES 69 

capital to start the distillery. Don’t let 
Creed jockey you ; don’t listen to Guernsey ; 
stick to your land and make your fortune, 
Harve, and stick to me, the best friend you 
ever had.” 

Although Ember’s fright had subsided, 
he peered at Murden, still fascinated by the 
power he held over his destiny. Curiosity 
began to replace his uneasiness ; he won- 
dered what Murden really meant to do. The 
ingenuity of the man oppressed Ember. He 
passed his hand over his damp forehead, 
striving to make out the strands of the web 
which he already began to feel growing 
stronger and tighter. 

“ Then you ain’t going to run Sark out ? ”, 
he said presently. 

“ Not if he keeps his word to you.” 

“ And if he won’t?” 

“ Then,” said Murden with a short laugh 
“ we’ll make it hot for him.” 

He arose and took Ember familiarly by 
the arm. Together they strolled out to the 


;o 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


the stove, where Guernsey was waddling 
about and fuming, and where Creed stood 
stolidly staring at the floor. 

“ I won’t sell,” said Ember in a low voice, 
and passed hastily out of the store with Mur- 
den. Together they struck into the fields 
back of Dagberg’s shanty, and, as they 
turned south toward Sark’s, the dog-cart 
passed along the lake road at a furious pace, 
headed for the Spook Bridge. 

“ Let him have his talk with Sark,” said 
Murden. “ He ain’t going to tell about that 
railroad yet. No fox stops his own earth 
to spite the hounds.” 

“ If he does, do you think Sark will back 
out ? ” inquired Ember. 

“ I don’t know, — I never knew an honest 
man very intimately,” replied Murden with 
cynical candour ; “ but I guess John Sark 
fills the bill for ordinary honesty.” 

“ Are you going to Sark’s now ? ” 

11 No — you are going though.” 

“ What for ? ” asked Ember faintly. 


TROUBLE CONTINUES 


7i 


“ To buy that land for yourself,” replied 
Murden. “ So long. I’ll wait for you at 
the store, Harve.” 

The menace under the smile made Em- 
ber sick. He turned on bis heel and struck 
out across tbe Barrens, feeling tbe leasb of 
bis master at every stride. Tbe momentary 
revolt at tbe lasb bad left him weaker and 
more thoroughly cowed than ever. It was 
always so ; each fresh encounter with Mur- 
den sapped the remaining dregs of resistance 
until be bad become what be was, a creature 
too unstrung, too miserable to resent tbe 
depths of bis own degradation. 

Slowly be approached Sark’s house ; tbe 
dog-cart was already standing before tbe 
door, and be knew that Creed and Guernsey 
were there. What could they be saying to 
Sark? 

He rang tbe outer bell ; Molly Trig came 
and regarded him with disfavour. However, 
be was accommodated with a seat in the east 
parlour, where be sat drumming bis stained 


72 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


fingers on the window ledge until heavy 
steps in the tiled hallway roused him from 
his vacant retrospections ; and he looked up 
to see Sark, followed by Creed and Guern- 
sey, enter the hall to the left. 

Sark nodded to him at once and beckoned 
him, while Creed set his lips and waited 
grimly, and Guernsey breathed hard. 

“ Make your offer now, Mr. Creed,” said 
Sark impatiently. 

“ Will you take it ? ” asked Creed, turn- 
ing to Ember. His great hard fists were 
trembling ; he raised one bony finger and 
solemnly adjured Ember to accept the 
offer. 

“ I’ll buy the land first,” said Ember ; 
“ then I’ll sell it — perhaps.” 

“ No, you won’t,” cut in Sark ; “ you’ll 
buy it under that condition or not at all ! ” 

“You ask me to sell the very land I was 
reared on?” whimpered Ember, forcing 
a pathos that disgusted even Creed. “ Do 
you think I care for the money ” 


TROUBLE CONTINUES 73 

“ I know how much you care for your 
laud,” said Sark. “ And I know you 
too.” 

Ember met his eye steadily ; he was learn- 
ing the effrontery of roguery. 

“ Air you a-goin’ to take my offer, Harve 
Ember? ” said Creed at length. 

“No,” snapped Ember, “I’ll keep that 
land myself.” 

“ No, you won’t ! ” shrieked Guernsey. 
“ Sark won’t sell if he knows his land is 
worth a million ” 

“ What ? ” exclaimed Sark incredulously, 
but Creed had shoved Guernsey from the 
door, down into the flower-beds where he wad- 
dled about bellowing threats at everybody 
until Mr. Batty, brandishing a rake, escorted 
him to the gate, and put him out into the 
road. 

“ Very well,” said Creed, staring at Em- 
ber, pale as death ; “ I’ll see that you don’t 
get the land for Murden and Dagberg.” 

“ The land is not for Murden and Dag- 


74 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


berg,” cut in Sark coldly ; “ it’s for this 
man’s daughter or — I shall keep it for my- 
self.” 

He walked to the front door, glancing 
grimly at Guernsey’s attempts to crawl into 
the dog-cart. 

“ I’ll sell you that land, Ember,” he said, 
“ if you will sell it to Creed under the agree- 
ment in favour of Miss Ember. Will you 
do it? ” 

The miserable man hesitated ; then the 
horror of Murden’s threat blanched his face 
and he cried out : “ No ! no ! no ! Give 
me my land ! If you don’t, you’ll pay for 
it ! — if you don’t, you’ll never forget it ! I 
warn you, do you hear? I warn ” 

“Show the gentleman out, Molly,” said 
Sark, curtly, and turned on his heel. 

At the outer gate Creed suddenly seized 
Ember by the lapels of his coat and backed 
him roughly up against the fence. “ What 
holt has Murden got on you ! ” he said, 
grinding his yellow teeth in fury, — “hey? 


TROUBLE CONTINUES 


75 


hey ? What holt has he got on you ? Why 
won’t he let you sell ? Hey ? ” 

Ember tore himself loose, backing away 
over the dusty road, Creed following him 
with impotent gestures of menace and rage. 

“You’ve spiled the deal!” he barked; 
“ he won’t sell now, he won’t sell to no- 
body ! Why d’ye do it ? Crazy, hey ? 
Drunk, hey? ’Fraid Murden would jail 
ye, hey ? ” 

The last shot found its billet, and Ember 
turned livid. 

“ Oho ! ” growled Creed, — “ so that’s the 
why ! Done somethin’, an’ afeared o’ jail, 
hey ? ” 

Suddenly Ember ceased retreating. Creed 
saw a look come into his face that meant 
despair, and he checked his own rage very 
quickly, recognizing it was prudent to do so. 

“ Look out,” said Ember, in a slow colour- 
less voice. 

The desperate white face of the man had 
a curious effect on Creed ; it scared him 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


76 

and gave him satisfaction at the same time. 
Now he knew that Murden was blackmail- 
ing Ember ; that it was Murden who had 
after all carried out his threat. There was 
but one thing to do ; there was no time to 
hesitate either. 

Guernsey had already painfully stowed 
himself away in the dog-cart; Creed hur- 
ried back to his fellow financier’s side, 
clawed the reins loose, whirled the whip, 
and sent the great grey horse on a gallop 
back toward Murden’ s store at the head of 
the lake. 

There was no breath left in Guernsey, so 
he could not swear at Creed, but he made 
awful faces at him as the cart flew over the 
stony road. 

Murden was sitting on the steps of his 
store as Creed drove up. Dagberg was 
there, too, but he rose and shambled across 
the field to his own shanty when Creed de- 
scended, throwing the reins at Guernsey. 

Murden surveyed him in silence, chewing 


TROUBLE CONTINUES 


77 


his unlighted cigar ; Creed returned his 
stare with a curious grin of hatred that still 
concealed something of reluctant admira- 
tion for the man who had brought him to 
terms. 

“ What’s your price ? ” said Creed at last, 
lowering his harsh voice. 

Murden, unmoved, considered a moment, 
head bent slightly to one side. 

“ You know what I mean?” asked Creed 
bitterly. 

“ Of course,” replied Murden. 

He rose and descended the wooden steps, 
laying one heavy hand on the sweating 
horse. 

“ My terms are these : one third interest 
in the new fern lands, and one fifth interest 
in the distillery after I put ten thousand 
dollars into it. Take it or leave it.” 

Guernsey shuddered; Creed, brought to 
bay, waited until the crisis of silent fury 
had left his mind clear enough to reason. 

But reasoning left Murden unmoved at 


78 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


first, and it finally ended by tiring him. 
He took out his watch, calling Creed’s atten- 
tion to the position of the minute hand. 

“ I’ll give you,” he said, “ one more 
minute.” 

That settled Creed, but he made a last 
attempt at terms : 

“ I’ll do it, Murden, if you engage to keep 
away from Ember’s daughter. She’ll have 
half a million, but you shan’t have that, no, 
by thunder ! ” 

“ Neither shall you ! ” blurted out Guern- 
sey in alarm ; “I guess I can marry too ! 
I guess there hain’t no law agin’ it ! I ” 

Creed swung around with an evil leer, 
just as Murden snapped his watch. 

“ Is it done ? ” he asked coolly. “ I’ll 
make no contract to keep away from the 
girl. We’ve all an equal chance, but the 
first thing to do is to get John Sark out of 
the country, for if I know anything, that 
girl of Ember’s is soft on him already ! ” 

So the bargain was sealed, and Murden, 


TROUBLE CONTINUES 


79 

calmly dropping Ember, Dagberg, and the 
new company overboard, went up tbe road 
to meet Ember, returning from bis unsuc- 
cessful mission to Sark. 

“ There is only one way left,” said Mur- 
den pleasantly ; “ go back and give in to 
him, Harve. Let Creed pay Rose the 
money, and I’ll see she doesn’t keep it 
long.” 

So it came about that, after all, John Sark 
re-sold his land to Ember, for the price he 
had paid for it; and Creed and Guernsey 
bought the land in for half a million dol- 
lars ; and that sum of money was deposited 
with John Sark for investment in the name 
of Rose Ember. 

The matter was settled that very evening. 
Creed and Guernsey made strong but una- 
vailing objections to the clause permitting 
Sark to retain possession of his house for 
one year from date, but Sark insisted, and 
they were obliged to consent. 

After it was all over, and the attorney 


8o 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


from High Falls had disappeared with 
Guernsey, Sark stood up and turned quietly 
to Creed. 

“ I don’t know why,” he said, “ you con- 
sider my land so valuable. I cannot believe 
that an active market for your essence, or 
even a corner in sweet-fern, could send the 
value of the raw weed up so fantastically. 
And now that the land is yours, may I ask 
you why it is so valuable ? ” 

“ You may, young man,” broke in Creed 
with insulting patronage ; “ the U. & C. 
are going to build to Amber Lake and the 
land is worth more than a Klondike mine 
this very minute.” 

Sark’s face did not change ; he looked 
from Creed to Ember and then at the con- 
tracts lying folded and signed before him 
on the table. 

“ Are you sure the railroad is coming?” 
he asked. 

“ I guess so,” grinned Creed ; “ I’ve got 
the company’s plans and contracts in my 


TROUBLE CONTINUES 81 

pocket.” And lie slapped his loose broad- 
cloth coat until the grey dust filled the air 
and made him sneeze. 

“ So that is business, is it? ” asked Sark, 
picking up the contracts and sorting out his 
own duplicates. “ I promised Ember to sell 
him the land again for what I paid for it. 
He buys it for a few dollars, holding me to 
my word, knowing all the while what the 
land might be worth. Is it business ? It 
seems rather ignoble to me, this conspiracy 
of men to buy a million for a few hundreds.” 

He accompanied Creed and Ember as far 
as the hall ; neither spoke to him. 

“However,” he said, “ I am glad for Miss 
Ember’s sake. Good night, gentlemen ; I 
congratulate you on your financial clever- 
ness.” 

Creed parted from Ember at the gate, 
taking no pains to conceal his scorn of the 
miserable dupe, and Ember started home- 
ward, wretched with his growing distrust of 

Murden. 

6 


82 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


He found Murden waiting for him under 
his own porch, and, at a gesture from that 
new financier, sat down on the damp piazza 
beside him. 

“ I’ve made a mistake,” said Murden 
coolly ; “ there’s only one way to get your 
daughter’s money.” 

Ember looked at him in breathless fasci- 
nation. 

“ The girl goes to Sark’s too much,” said 
Murden ; “ she doesn’t know it, herself, but 
I know she’s growing sweet on him.” 

.Still Ember remained mute. 

“ Do you want him to marry her and walk 
off with her money ? That’s what his game 
is,” said Murden brutally. 

“ You — you don’t think that,” blurted 
out the wretched man ; “ you won’t let him 
do that, Murden ! ” 

“ No,” said Murden quietly ; “ for I’ll 
marry her myself if that’s the only way to 
save the money.” 

After a long silence he saw that Ember 


TROUBLE CONTINUES 


83 


was weeping, head hanging on his breast. 
His shame had crushed him ; he was tast- 
ing the last dregs now, impotent, broken, 
hopeless. 

Deftly Murden fanned the last sparks of 
rage in Ember’s degraded breast, cleverly he 
directed the man’s weak anger against Sark. 

“ That fellow must go,” he said ; “ I’ll 
get your money for you then, but I can’t 
while he stays and she goes to his house. 
He must quit the country now ! — not in a 
year, but now ! I’ve thrown over Dagberg 
and the others ; you and I will share Rose’s 
money, but we must throw a sop to Fritz 
and the rest.” 

“ Yes, he must go ! ” cried Ember fiercely. 
“ You once said you would run him out ! I’ll 
help you ! I’ll not stand his robbing me — 
I’ll not sit here and see him, a rich man, 
take the bread out of my mouth ! ” 

“ I think,” observed Murden pleasantly, 
“ that the White Riders had better send him 
his first warning to-night.” 


CHAPTER IV 


THE FIRST WARNING 

CONCERNING INSCRIPTIONS AND HIEROGLY- 
PHICS, MODERN AND ANCIENT, WITH SIDE 
REMARKS ON THE NORTH AMERICAN 
VENUS 

They went about tbeir business quietly, 
but tbeir horses made more or less stir on 
the dim lawn ; and, when one grim rider, 
hideously disguised, nailed a bit of paper to 
the front door, it seemed certain that some 
of the inmates must have heard the muffled 
hammering. 

A long sweet bird-call broke out from a 
thicket near the bridge ; there came a 
trample of shod hoofs on the drive, the rat- 
tle and tinkle of scattering gravel, a dead- 


THE FIRST WARNING 85 

deadened echo of the stampede across the 
meadow. 

John Sark awoke in his dark bed. 

His first impulse was to drag the pillow 
over his head as quickly as possible ; his 
next — for he remained a reasoning individ- 
ual, even when half asleep — was to find out 
what had awakened him. 

Not in years had he been roused at such 
an hour ; it made him mad to think of it, and 
the more he thought of it the madder he 
grew. He had his own theory concerning 
sleep ; he was satisfied that the clodhopper’s 
maxim : 

“ Early to bed 
Early to rise — ” 

not only preserved that species from extinc- 
tion but kept the visible supply of clodhop- 
pers undiminished. 

0 If I lie here wondering why I woke up, 
how can I sleep ? — and I desire to go to 
sleep, damn it ! ” muttered Sark. 

And doubtless he would have gone tri- 


86 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


umphantly to sleep had not a distant sound 
caught his ear, a dull regular thudding like 
the muffled gallop of horses over a wooden 
bridge. 

He jumped out of bed and leaned from the 
window ; the Spook Bridge, grey with lake 
vapour, loomed through the trees, spectral, 
misty, deserted. If anything had passed 
over it there was no sign now — yet, at mo- 
ments, he seemed still to hear the beat of 
horses’ feet, or it may have been the drum- 
ming of his own heart. 

He was now thoroughly awake and pro- 
portionately dejected ; nor did it allay his ir- 
ritation to retire to bed and toss and thrash 
for an hour. At last finding sleep impossi- 
ble, for his rising resentment increased his 
wakefulness every moment, he climbed out 
of bed once more, attempted to force a yawn, 
couldn’t, and finally sat down in a chair by 
the open window, a prey to wrath. 

From the window he could survey the 
Spook Bridge, and the morning vapours 


THE FIRST WARNING 


87 


marking the course of the spring brook until 
they were lost in grey lake fog ; he could see 
the dark Sagamore Hills, massed from the 
shadowy world of dawn, printed like low- 
lying clouds against the paling eastern sky ; 
and, far in the west, where pallid uncertain 
shadows wavered between earth and stars, he 
made out the dusky edges of the Barrens, 
that strange land of silence and desolation, 
wild, unexplored, immeasurable. 

The damp breath of dawn stirred his hair ; 
the breeze smelled clean and cold, saturated 
with perfumes from an unknown wilderness, 
freshened by aromatic exhalations from lost 
lakes, tinctured with spruce, birch, hemlock, 
and the sweet deep spice of the fern. 

Leaning there, both bare elbows on the 
window ledge, where beaded dew, topaz and 
amethyst, spread necklaces from vine to 
vine, he heard a bird awake somewhere far 
away in the Barrens, — an unknown bird to 
him — pirr-oo-it ! pir-oo-it ! 

“ Never heard a note like it,” he muttered 


88 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


sulkily, — “pirr-oo-it! What kind of a bird 
is that I’d like to know ? ” 

Ornithology was not his province, but even 
had it been, he never could have identified 
that bird-note, a note he was destined to 
hear again, far out in the mystery of the 
Barrens, — and nearer too — here in his own 
garden. 

The vapour on the lake was lifting ; he 
could see the ghostly outlines of Murden’s 
store, the squat shape of Dagberg’s shanty 
near the edge of the Barrens, and, on the 
high bank above Sweet Fern Creek, the 
abodes of Spike Mitchel and Con Nolan. 

Three miles to the northwest, across the 
sweet-fern waste beyond the lake, the un- 
lovely bulk of the distillery rose, its native 
ugliness softened by the demi-twilight. 

Musing there by the window, he looked 
at the great shapeless building where wild 
sweet-fern was converted into aromatic drops, 
to the moderate profit of the Distilling Com- 
pany. 


THE FIRST WARNING 89 

He thought of the two financiers and their 
visit. He could not see Guernsey’s house ; 
it stood behind the distillery. Creed’s man- 
sion also was hidden among the trees above 
the eastern shore of the lake. 

Sark bore them no ill-will because they 
had never taken the trouble to be decent to 
him. When he thought of them at all he 
thought of them as two shrewd men who had 
seen Fortune hiding among the spicy weeds, 
that grew wild, far as the eye could see. 
They could take the land ; he would not in- 
terfere with any fortune that smiled on Rose 
Ember. Besides, a year of peace was guar- 
anteed to him. 

The sun rose above the lake ; the golden 
water was all starred and sprayed with 
splashes from rising fish. He watched one 
heavy trout jumping persistently in the same 
spot not a yard from his boat-house below 
the Spook Bridge. 

The antics of the fish put him into better 
humour ; the full melody of bird music from 


90 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


every thicket soothed his irritation. He 
sniffed the sweetened breeze ; a desire seized 
him to go out and wade in the dew on the 
lawn. Molly would not be about for an hour ; 
Mr. Batty never arose unless somebody 
kicked at his door ; there would be nobody 
to witness Sark’s lambkin gambols. 

He rolled up his pajamas, stepped out of 
his crash bath slippers, and stole to the front 
door, upon cavorting bent, beaming bucolic 
beatitude. 

As he opened the door and turned around 
to close it, he was surprised to observe a 
square sheet of brown wrapping paper tacked 
to the panels just above the knob. There 
was an inscription on the paper ; he read it 
twice, then read it again slowly. 

DETH 



MR SARK deeR SIR git Yu DAM 
CRANK Yu aint no good and we dont 


THE FIRST WARNING 


9i 


want you HEaR we guess, this is THE 
1st WARNING SO NO MORE AT 
PRESENT 

BY ORDER 

CAPTING OF WHITE RIDERS 
Mohawk Divishun 
K. O. T. B. 

Presently he sat down on the door-step 
and gazed thoughtfully at the lawn. Horses 
had stamped over it ; fresh dirt lay on the 
gravel walk, flung there by steel hoofs. He 
noticed something white lying on the grass 
under the laurel hedge, — at first he thought 
it was a heavy bunch of blossoms torn off 
by his visitors, but when he drew on his 
bath slippers and went down the path he 
found, on the grass, a white mask, home- 
made but well made, with two strings as 
fasteners. 

For ten or fifteen minutes he searched the 
lawn and the hedge, and then, finding noth- 


9 2 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


in g more, lie followed the road to the Spook 
Bridge. The blue clay road bore plenty of 
hoof-marks ; certainly half a dozen horse- 
men had passed over it, probably more, un- 
less he read the sign amiss. But, except 
for the hoof imprints, he discovered no new 
evidence, and he returned to the house, head 
bent, absently dangling the white mask by 
one string. 

It was a cruel hour to arouse Mr. Batty ; 
Sark went up-stairs and kicked at the first 
door on the left until a feeble voice expos- 
tulated : 

“ My conscience ! ” protested Mr. Batty, 
“ now Fll leave it to you, Sark, whether this 
is right ” 

“ Come out ! ” said Sark briefly. 

“ I won’t ! ” shouted Mr. Batty. 

“ As you like,” replied Sark moving 
away. 

'“My conscience! Is anything wrong 
with the Venus? ” asked Mr. Batty, opening 
the door a little way. 


THE FIRST WARNING 


93 


“ No,” said Sark, “ the Venus is all right. 
Put on your panties and come into my 
room.” 

He went to his bedroom, laid the mask 
and insulting placard on the centre table, 
drew up a chair, and sat down, chin on wrist, 
searching for evidence within the evidence 
lying before him. 

He was young yet, a few months past 
thirty, but already in the corner of his keen 
grey eyes lay two or three minute creases 
like those one notices in men who do much 
microscopic work or live much in the open 
air. He was doing the one ; he had done 
the other. His head was a typical soldier’s 
head, hair close clipped, mustache burnt 
to a crisp straw colour. One superficial 
characteristic of this man seemed to be a 
sort of immaculate negligence ; he always 
appeared fresh and cool ; he could wander 
through the woods all day and emerge spot- 
less ; he was one of those men to whom dust 
never sticks, whose hands never soil, who 


94 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


never perspire, and who look smart in old 
clothes. 

Mr. Batty, who, had he possessed the 
wardrobe of Solomon, would have worn it 
like a theatrical supernumerary, shuffled into 
Sark’s room, clad in mouse-coloured desha- 
bille and further adorned with round specta- 
cles which, at certain angles, reflected day- 
light like extinct bull’s-eye lanterns. 

“ My conscience ! ” he blurted, “ do you 
think you’re in the army again! No, I 
won’t sit down for any man, living or dead ! 
I’ve got three more hours sleep coming to 
me — no, I won't sit down — unless the Venus 
is ” 

“ The Venus is all right,” said Sark, “ and 
it’s because I want to pay her undivided at- 
tention to-day that I’m going to dispose of 
this extra problem before working hours.” 
He made a careless gesture toward the table ; 
Mr. Batty’s distracted eyes were diverted to 
the white mask. He examined it calmly ; 
Sark motioned him to a seat and handed 


THE FIRST WARNING 


95 


him the design representing the popular 
conception of a human skull and thigh- 
bones. 

“ Joke ? ” inquired Mr. Batty after a judi- 
cial contemplation of the placard. 

“ Oh, no,” said Sark ; “ White-caps.” 

“ White-caps ? What for ? ’ 

“ I don’t know. At first glance one might 
think that Ember had repented of the bar- 
gain and was attempting to blackmail me. 
But if that were so he wouldn’t show his 
hand so clumsily. I found this on the front 
door ; they probably made some racket put- 
ting it up and that must have aroused me. 
I heard them on the Spook Bridge : there’s 
plenty of sign on the lawn. There were 
half a dozen horsemen, I think, probably 
more. I looked over the trail carelessly ; 
it was made within an hour of the time I 
found their notice on my door.” 

Mr. Batty, perfectly aware that Sark had 
spent some seven years as a lieutenant of 
cavalry in Arizona, never dreamed of doubt- 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


in g His judgment respecting trails, but He 
Had always been sceptical wHen asked to 
believe tHat, since tHe long strike, Mokawk 
County could again descend to lawlessness. 
From time to time reports of Wkite-cap out- 
rages filtered into tHe quiet kousekold, vague 
reports in some provincial paper or tHe 
vaguer gossip of passing commercial travel- 
lers from tHe southern counties. Nothing 
However Happened in Mohawk County to 
confirm the Hints that the travelling brother- 
hood threw out, and Mr. Batty became very 
earnest and very angry when Sark Had 
sometimes gravely twitted him about the 
lawlessness of His native county. 

“ Where there’s smoke there’s fire,” said 
Sark, quietly, “ but where there’s fire there 
isn’t always smoke — did you know that, 
Batty my boy ? Come, don’t scowl like an 
enraged tom-tit ; look up and tell me what 
you find in that page of modern hiero- 
glyphics.” 

“ Find ? ” repeated Mr. Batty, “ I find 


THE FIRST WARNING 97 

a badly drawn skull and some tommy- 
rot ! ” 

“ And I,” said Sark, examining tbe pla- 
card with eyes slightly puckered, “ have 
found in it one or two interesting coinci- 
dences. To begin with, at least three people 
have collaborated on that work of art ; one 
of them is a German, and one is either an 
Egyptian or an Indian. What do you think 
of that, Batsy ? ” 

“ I can see the Teutonic taint myself 
now that you speak of it,” said Mr. Batty ; 
“ the German ‘ g ’ in 1 git ’ ” 

“Yes and the ‘ t ’ ; and also the *g’ in 
1 warning.’ Do you notice those animals in 
the upper right-hand corner? I’ve seen 
Indians draw weasels like that. Have you 
ever heard of the denizens of a romantic 
little village about fifteen miles north 
of here ? It is called Weazeltown, I be- 
lieve.” 

Mr. Batty admitted that he had heard of 
the “ weazels ” of Weazeltown. 

7 


9 8 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


“ Very well ; they may have had a finger 
in this : as for those animals there, I would 
unhesitatingly pronounce them Indian work 
— were it not for those three drawings in 
the lower left-hand corner — yon see how 
clearly they have outlined the dragon-fly ? — 
why, Batty, yon can name the very spe- 
cies ” 

“ Trimacnlata ! ” said Mr. Batty eagerly ; 
“ caudal appendage and all.” 

“ Exactly ; accurate enough for a Japa- 
nese artist, yet more archaic ; too accurate 
for an Indian — I mean in detail of execution, 
yet like an Indian to delineate some creature 
he is familiar with.” 

“ The Barrens swarm with the Trimacu- 
lata,” said Mr. Batty earnestly. 

“ I believe so. And if anybody asked my 
opinion concerning the nationality of the 
designer I should say Egyptian — some 2000 
years B. C.” 

Mr. Batty looked at Sark, then at the pla- 
card, then at Sark. 


THE FIRST WARNING 


99 


“ Now,” continued Sark,“ there is repre- 
sented a beetle — a scarab yon can see at a 
glance. That is not Indian-like in any 
way ; there are few representatives of the 
family in this region, and certainly no such 
beetle as that. What are you staring at, 
Batty ? ” 

“ It is the sacred Egyptian scarabaeus,” 
said Mr. Batty solemnly. 

Sark nodded to confirm the identification. 

“ But ” he said, “ what is that thing next 
to the scarab? ” 

They leaned over the design for a few 
moments in silence : then Mr. Batty said : 

“ Is it a tooth and roots ? ” 

“ What does the black portion represent ? ” 
queried Sark. 

Finally they gave it up, and Sark was 
convinced that, if it represented anything 
at all, the design had not been executed by 
the Indian or the “ Ancient Egyptian,” as 
he called him. 

“ As for the skull and femurs — ordinary 


IOO 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


home talent, I fancy— eh, Batsy? Reminds 
me of your best period in school.” 

“ Bosh,” said Mr. Batty, “ what are you 
going to do about this thing, Sark ? ” 

“ Do ? Nothing. I may see Ember. Of 
course we won’t say anything to his daugh- 
ter.” 

“ But if these White Riders come 
here ” 

“ There are guns enough up-stairs, I 
reckon,” observed Sark without emotion. 
Mr. Batty picked up the mask. 

“ See anything queer about it?” asked 
Sark. 

“No, it’s home-made?” suggested Mr. 
Batty cautiously. 

“ Yes, made out of a woman’s cambric 
handkerchief, stiffened with crinoline from 
a woman’s sleeve or skirt, tied with two ends 
of a corset lace ; the brass points are left on 
each, and the manufacturer’s initials and 
trade-mark — see? And finally the mask is 
scented slightly with that violet that they 


THE FIRST WARNING ioi 

mix in quinine for a hair tonic and sell to 
women.” 

“ My conscience ! ” said Mr. Batty, “ where 
did you learn so much ? Oh, I forgot you 
were in the cavalry.” 

“ Bosh ! ” said Sark, looking out of the 
window. 

“ Your deduction then is that the sex is 
in this matter ? ” asked Mr. Batty mildly. 

“ I think a woman made that mask — 
perhaps wore it, — who knows,” returned 
Sark. “ Go and dress and we’ll call on 
Venus before breakfast, Batsy.” 

When Mr. Batty had retired Sark stripped, 
sponged, shaved minutely, and dressed. 
Somehow or other his linen always seemed 
cleaner than any other man’s linen, and his 
worn knickerbockers and threadbare Scotch 
jacket appeared to have an effect that the 
tailors call “ chaste ” and shop-girls and 
very young artists call “ swell.” 

“ Come on, Batty,” he called, giving his 
fresh necktie a twist with scarcely a glance 


102 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


at the mirror ; and in a moment or two they 
were in the third hot-house, which was really 
a glass-roofed shed filled with hundreds 
of gauze boxes, each box numbered and 
labeled. 

Sark stopped halfway down the centre 
path before a shelf numbered “Exotic 21,” 
bent his head slightly, and peered cau- 
tiously into a glass box faced with wire 
gauze. The box was labelled : 

Actias Azteca ; var : A. Astarte. 

December 3d, 1897. 

“Out?” inquired Mr. Batty in great ex- 
citement. 

“ No,” said Sark, “ the birth of Venus is 
postponed.” 

Mr. Batty peered into the box where a 
small egg-shaped object lay. It was the 
flimsy cocoon of what was to be a new moth — 
a sexless hybrid, the product of the splendid 
North American Luna moth Actias Luna 
and the tropical Actias Azteca — if it ever 
emerged from the cocoon. 


THE FIRST WARNING 


103 


The study of insects injurious to vegeta- 
tion had left Sark a hopeless monomaniac 
on Entomology. Beginning with a desire 
to learn all about injurious insects in order 
to devise methods for their extermination, 
Sark had ended by developing and adding 
to the known species by cross-breeding and 
grafting and fussing. He pampered strange 
and hideous caterpillars with their favourite 
food, he even devised new luxuries for them. 
He built hot-houses to breed them in ; he 
invented porous glass slides to keep out 
ichneumon flies, he drew them, painted 
them, photographed them, and pickled 
them. He stuffed and mounted grisly-look- 
ing caterpillars, preserving the perishable 
portions of their colour by painting ; he 
modelled them in wax, then took casts, 
glazed or varnished the plaster, and coloured 
it until it was not possible to tell a motion- 
less living larva from his reproduction. 

Already he was known to the scientific 
world as an authority on certain species and 


104 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


varieties ; liis marvellous experiments in 
grafting, although first suggested by Pro- 
fessor Exyze’s clever operations on the 
pupae of the Cecropia and Sarnia Cynthia, 
were carried to a period where he demon- 
strated that a living composite imago could 
be reared with the antennae and head of the 
Io, the thorax of the Polyphemus, the ab- 
domen of the Prometheus, and each separate 
wing of primaries and secondaries the com- 
pletely developed wing of a distinct variety 
of some member of the Bombyx family. 

This series of experiments opened to Mr. 
Batty’s astigmatic vision a vista filled with 
multi-coloured diurnal lepidoptera, each in- 
dividual stranger than the strangest night- 
mare that ever harassed an Entomologist. 

“ My conscience ! ” he whispered to Sark ; 
“ fancy the primaries of a Turnus and the 
secondaries of a Troilus ! ” 

“ It can be done, I believe,” said Sark, 
convinced that they were, as yet, merely in 
the infancy of synthetic Entomology. He 


THE FIRST WARNING 105 

took one last look at tke cocoon where the 
mysterious North American Venus lay 
sleeping in her chrysalis. 

“ Here’s Molly,” said Mr. Batty looking 
up. 

“ Coffee is served, sir,” came a demure 
voice from the greenhouse door. 

“ Is Miss Ember there ? ” asked Sark. 

Molly’s pretty mouth disclosed an edge of 
white teeth. “ Miss Ember has just entered 
the garden, sir.” 

“Come on, Batty,” said Sark, glancing 
out of the window toward the garden where 
a young lady was taking a short cut across 
the flower-beds, skirts discreetly lifted. 

“ Did you ever notice,” said Mr. Batty 
“ anything extraordinary about Rose Em- 
ber ? ” 

“ She’s, uncommonly clever,” said Sark. 

“ Does she resemble anything in particu- 
lar ? ” persisted Mr. Batty. 

“Nothing except other young women — 
does she ? ” inquired Sark. 


10 6 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

“ My conscience ! ” said Mr. Batty, “ don’t 
you think she’s handsome, Sark ? ” 

“ Most women are — I think,” replied Sark. 

“ Bosh ! most of them are plain and tire- 
some, and when they’re young they’re 
devils.” 

“ All women look very pleasant to me,” 
said Sark sincerely. “It takes seven years 
in the Indian frontier to appreciate woman in 
the abstract.” 

Mr. Batty, who had taught the elements 
of physiology for years in a feminine board- 
ing school, and whose memory of the tor- 
tures he had undergone left him with a well- 
developed dread of anything feminine, sniffed 
and followed Sark from the hot-house. Rose 
Ember crossed the lawn ahead of them and 
entered the house. “ If you should buy a 
plaster head of the Venus of Milo and tint 
it and put in blue-glass eyes, and paint the 
hair with gold paint you’d have a good 
portrait bust of Miss Embers,” said Mr. 
Batty. 


THE FIRST WARNING 


107 

“ But I don’t want one,” remonstrated 
Sark. 

“ You don’t have to have it,” said Mr. 
Batty ; “ she’s probably as devilish as all 
the rest.” 

“ She does her work, that’s all I know,” 
said Sark simply. “ As for being a North 
American Venus that may be true, but the 
Venus in hot-house number three is the 
safest one for you, Batsy.” 

“ How about yourself?” retorted Mr. 
Batty. 

“ There’s mighty little sentiment in me,” 
replied Sark without embarrassment. 

“ I guess that’s true,” admitted Mr. Batty, 
“ and what amazes me is that, after years of 
hell in that female boarding school, I love 
the fiends that tormented me — that is the 
good-looking ones — and if ever I get over 
my fear of women I’ll be a devil among the 
sex — positively I will, Sark.” 

In his earnestness he turned a delicate 
shell pink. 


108 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

Sark, absent-minded, nodded pleasantly 
and entered tbe bouse. 

“ Good morning, Miss Ember,” he said ; 
“ after breakfast I should like your opinion 
on the Astarte cocoon. I may decide to ex- 
amine it if our Venus is not born this week. 
Permit me, Miss Ember — this is your arm- 
chair — Mr. Batty, will you say grace? ” 

“ For what we are about to receive — ” 
bleated Mr. Batty as though he harboured a 
horrid suspicion that his own portion con- 
tained prussic acid : and then Sark seated 
Rose Ember with that pleasant impersonal 
deference that women admire but do not 
always find perfectly satisfying. 


CHAPTER V 


THE NORTH AMERICAN VENUS 

CONTAINING MORAL AND SCIENTIFIC OB- 
SERVATIONS BOTH DELICATELY JUDICI- 
OUS AND SINGULARLY SAPIENT 

The breakfast table was pretty enough ; 
snowy mounds of laurel bordered with sweet- 
fern made the decorations a trifle prim ; 
in fact, there was a certain primness in the 
air that morning, for Rose Ember’s thick 
golden hair was brushed more severely 
Greek than usual, and Sark’s white waist- 
coat added more starch than was necessary 
to the breakfast rites, and Mr. Batty folded 
his hands and gazed absently at vacancy 
through the round disks of his spectacles. 

The deep sweet spice of the fern filled the 

109 


I 10 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


room, exhilarating as ocean ozone. Reserve 
and apathy seldom endured long under the 
stimulus of this wild tonic from the Barrens : 
Sark brightened up as Rose Ember poured 
his coffee, and Mr. Batty abandoned wool- 
gathering long enough to pounce upon his 
muffin and re-butter it energetically. 

As for Rose, the sadness of her home life 
was always followed by a quick reaction 
when the early morning brought her across 
the Barrens to Sark’s. She was tall and 
very young, with the wild rose-colour in her 
cheeks and two clear wide eyes that some- 
times in retrospective moments grew pensive 
and heavy-lidded. Free-limbed, red-lipped, 
and healthy in mind and body, this Mohawk 
County maid, with her full white neck and 
exquisite Greek head, had at first reduced 
Mr. Batty to a state of mind only to be de- 
scribed as drivelling. 

He was better now, though far from 
strong. 

Sark had always thought her “ a perfect 


THE NORTH AMERICAN VENUS m 

specimen of the species;” it refreshed his 
tired eyes to look up from microscope and 
note-book and see this smiling rosy in- 
carnation. of Greek art waiting beside his 
table for instructions regarding some great 
soft-winged moth staring at the world 
through amber eyes from the depths of a 
gauze box. 

Once or twice, when circumstances made 
it impossible for him to work, he wondered, 
contemplating her vaguely, why he had not 
found time to become sentimental over her. 
It was exactly that — he had not had time. 
The absorbing imperative interest in his 
work dulled the finer perceptions of human 
interest, the excitement in rearing a grafted 
moth left him no inclination for further 
excitement. His hopes, doubts, fears, were 
already bespoken ; he had nothing but 
embryo emotions left for anybody or any- 
thing outside of his profession and the in- 
dividual genera which it covered. It was 
too bad, it was a mistake, and he often sus- 


1 12 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


pected it. At such moments lie would think 
to himself: “Til just finish this Cecropia 
grafting and take a rest. Miss Ember must 
imagine I haven’t a mental resource outside 
of playing wet-nurse to butterflies.” 

Mr. Batty gazed earnestly at Rose Ember 
through his spectacles. u Do you know,” 
he said, reflecting with his head on his 
shoulder like a tomtit immersed in reverie — 
“ I believe, Miss Ember, that I should have 
thoroughly enjoyed the delirious saturnalia 
of the Roman decadence.” 

“ I don’t know much about it,” said Rose 
demurely ; — “ only the outlines as compiled 
for young ladies in the State Normal School 
— and I couldn’t find anything very shock- 
ing even in the Latin notes at the back.” 

“It was a hair-raising period,” said Sark, 
smiling at her in his absent-minded way. 

“ I should not object to hair-raising,” ob- 
served Mr. Batty, whose despair at his pre- 
mature baldness he concealed under a 
sprightly jocularity, intended to deceive. 


THE NORTH AMERICAN VENUS 113 

“ You are bald,” said Sark, “ and I’m get- 
ting as grey as Noab ” 

He touched bis temples as be spoke, smil- 
ing ; yet, in bis eyes, was tbe shadow that 
falls when a man at thirty measures tbe 
span of years backward and forward from 
youth to age. 

“ There are only two grey hairs on each 
side,” said Rose Ember, speaking more em- 
phatically than she had meant to. 

After that, unaccountably annoyed at 
her own remark, she maintained a reserved 
silence until breakfast was ended. 

“ What are you going to do, Batty ? ” 
asked Sark, lighting his cigarette. 

“ I think,” said Mr. Batty, “ that I ought 
to test all those Io moths on the setting- 
board. They’ve been there two weeks.” 

“ They’re dry, then,” said Sark. “ Case 
them and put the Mexicans in the relaxing 
cupboard so you can set them to-morrow. 
Don’t use steam.” 

“ May I help you set the Mexicans?” 


H4 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

asked Rose, touching the tips of her white 
fingers to the water in the finger-bowl. 

“ They won’t relax to-day,” observed 
Sark ; “ I wish you’d get the instruments 
and come into number three.” 

“ You’re not going to tamper with 
the Astarte ? ” exclaimed Mr. Batty nerv- 
ously. 

“ That’s exactly what I am going to do. 
If there’s anything wrong with the chrys- 
alis I want to know it.” 

“Will you venture to open the cocoon? ” 
asked Rose, delighted. “ Oh, I shall be 
very glad to help you ; I do hope the hor- 
rid ichneumon flies have not been hatching 
mischief with our Venus ! ” 

“ I don’t know,” replied Sark solemnly, 
“ I watched over that caterpillar with the 
devotion of a parent from the minute it left 
the egg to the day it finished spinning its 
own cradle.” 

“You did all you could,” said Mr. Batty 
sympathetically. 


THE NORTH AMERICAN VENUS 115 

“ You couldn’t spin its own cocoon for it, 
you know,” said Rose Ember mischiev- 
ously. 

“ And you can’t batch it out like a hen,” 
added Mr. Batty, not meaning to be flip- 
pant. 

“You might try ? ” suggested Rose, try- 
ing to speak sentimentally. Sark looked 
up at her with sudden suspicion. He could 
only see the tip of one little ear ; she was 
adjusting a hair-pin with a careless grace 
intimately and mysteriously feminine. 

“ I shall be in the third hot-house,” he 
said briefly, and he left the dining-room by 
one door as Rose and Mr. Batty left by the 
other. 

A small bird had managed to get into the 
third hot-house, and, when Rose entered 
with the case of scissors and forceps, she 
found Sark, disgusted, delivering his opinion 
of the bird to the bird itself : 

“ You yellow-headed thief, you haven’t 
left a single caterpillar on those violets! 


ii 6 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

Do you think just because you’re a Golden- 
winged Warbler you can pay your bill with 
your idiotic zee ! zee ! zee ! Shut up ! I 
don’t care if your name is Helminthophila 
Chrysoptera ! — you decadent Latin gorman- 
dizer — you ornithological Batty ! Get out 
of my hot-house ! ” 

“ Goodness ! What a Philippic! ” ex- 
claimed Rose, staring very hard at the small 
robber-bird, who, not at all embarrassed, re- 
garded her amiably and said “ Zee ! zee ! 
zee ! ” 

“ Zee — zee ! Indeed ! I zee — zee what 
you’ve been doing ! ” she said, lifting a re- 
proachful finger, “ you have eaten every 
single one of those poor Frillitaries. Fly 
away this minute ! — you mortify me ! ” 

Between them they hustled the impudent 
Warbler out, and Rose, flushed and excited, 
came back to the box where the cocoon of 
Actias Astarte, the wonderful North Ameri- 
can Venus, reposed in all the majesty of 
embryotic inertia. 


THE NORTH AMERICAN VENUS 117 

“ It’s most provoking,” said Sark slowly, 
“ to have a ridiculous bird breakfast off of 
one’s rarest caterpillars.” 

It was annoying. The caterpillars of the 
rare Nitocris were modest exiles from Ari- 
zona, not at all intrusive, — so modest were 
they that they only came out to eat violet 
leaves in the evening. The common frog, 
chastest of individuals, is not more discreet in 
delicate situations than are the self-effacing 
larvae of the Arizona Nitocris, — and then, to 
be set upon and greedily gobbled by a small 
bird with a yellow patch on his head ! — it 
was as humiliating for the caterpillars as 
for Sark. 

“ I won’t cut the cocoon until I cool 
down,” said Sark, as Rose handed him a 
slender pair of curved scissors. 

“ May I?” she asked; “ my hand is 
steady, — see ! ” 

She held out a fresh, fragrant hand. Any 
man on earth would have been justified in 
taking it. 


1 18 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

“ You may try it,” said Sark, looking 
hard at the white hand. 

She opened the perforated glass door and 
picked up the small, egg-shaped bundle of 
silk. First, she removed the single dry 
leaf that partly wrapped it leaving on the 
golden brown silk an imprint of the leaf’s 
vination. Next, she introduced the curved 
point of the scissors into the looser end of 
the cocoon, cutting slowly, carefully, a cir- 
cular section from the case. The silken 
peeling fell, curling up like an apple-skin ; 
the interior coating was polished and lac- 
quered. 

Sark had placed a soft cradle of cotton- 
wool on the table beside him, and now 
Rose, holding the cocoon carefully between 
her thumb and forefinger, gently reversed 
it, sliding the imprisoned chrysalis out and 
onto his new couch. 

“ Rose ! ” said Sark, calling her by her 
first name in his excitement, “ the moth is 
breaking the shell already ! ” 


THE NORTH AMERICAN VENUS 119 

It was true. Instead of a smooth, plump, 
polished chrysalis, varnished like a South 
American nut, the embryo Astarte was soft, 
very dark, and brittle-skinned. Already the 
head plates had cracked longitudinally, the 
short lateral cracks opened as they looked, 
and a mass of pink and white down emerged, 
slowly disclosing two jewelled eyes, followed 
by first one and then another of the fern- 
like antennae. 

The birth of Venus was at hand ! 

Downy legs, pink, and pale green, 
stretched out feebly, seeking support; the 
crackling translucent chrysalis slid from the 
body, the moth crawled toward a low hanging 
bunch of maple leaves, mounted the stem, 
crept under it, and hung, limp wings and 
body palpitating. 

Two hours later, Sark lifted his head in 
silence ; Rose impulsively stretched out her 
hand, and he took it, acknowledging the 
eager mute congratulation. 

There hung the moth, fully expanded, a 


120 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


superb hybrid with great translucent sea- 
green wings literally set with silver circles. 
It bore traces of its parents in the white 
silky body and long gauze prolongations or 
tails attached to the lower wings ; but, in 
place of the lunate spots, both pairs of wings 
were studded with silvery moons, resembling 
in texture the spots on the under side of 
Argynnis Aphrodite. 

“ What a wondrous creature ! ” breathed 
Sark, awed at his own triumph. 

“ Beautiful — your Venus,’’ sighed Rose, 
“ but oh, what a pity it can’t have little 
ones ! ” 

Mr. Batty, who had entered on tip-toe, 
was having mild hysterics behind an orange 
tree loaded with blossoms, but, when he 
heard Rose’s innocent remark, he suddenly 
grew very solemn. 

Was unproductive beauty futile after all ? 
Was there nothing better in life than to 
gape all day at the tarsus of a dead butter- 
fly? Was Sark missing anything when 


THE NORTH AMERICAN VENUS 121 

he spent his youth worshipping a sexless 
hybrid, named with unconscious irony, As- 
tarte, — the Ashtoreth, prophetess of un- 
bridled, ungirdled Aphrodite ! He looked 
at Rose Ember through his spectacles; and 
Rose was fair to look upon. 

“ My heavens ! Batty, I never felt so happy 
in all my life,” said Sark, shaking his 
offered hand. 

“ Nor I,” said Mr. Batty sentimentally ; 
but he looked at Rose as he spoke, and his 
eyes were cloudy with affection. 

All day long Sark sat beside his Venus, 
note-book in hand, alternately writing, and 
using his great magnifying glass on the 
motionless moth. He filled pages on the 
description of the discal areas alone ; with 
amazement and joy he constituted the pres- 
ence of androconia and recorded the dis- 
covery. A minute study of the vination 
might appear to many a hopeless undertak- 
ing without ruining the wings of the beauti- 
ful creature, but Sark had resources of his 


122 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


own, and, with, the aid of Rose Ember and 
an X-ray, the thing was accomplished with- 
out disturbing a single scale. 

At last the veins and nervules, costal, 
subcostal, radial, median and sub-median, 
had been lettered and numbered ; measure- 
ments made, compared and corrected, photo- 
graph after photograph taken of the moth 
in every possible position and from every 
angle. Rose made an independent investi- 
gation in the meanwhile, sketched certain 
positions of the feet and antennae, and finally 
picked up the mass of notes and arranged 
them. She was tired ; she numbered the 
sheets of paper mechanically, filing each in 
its proper place ; and, when Sark looked up 
from his own labour, the notes were in order, 
the sketches sorted, and the lethal chamber 
stood ready to absorb the vital essence of 
the North American Venus. 

“ What a perfect jewel you are ! ” said 
Sark ; “ I don’t know what on earth I am 
going to do without you ” 


THE NORTH AMERICAN VENUS 123 

“ Are you going to do without me ? ” 
said Rose, startled. 

Sark bit bis lip : 

“ I’ll talk to you on that subject later,” 
be said ; “ help me, now, for our lovely 
Venus is about to die.” 

Tbe letbal chamber was a square crystal 
box ; tbe bottom was covered with cyanide 
of potassium under a thin porous layer of 
plaster of Paris ; tbe lid fitted perfectly air- 
tight ; tbe atmosphere of tbe chamber was 
death. 

Rose gently detached the leaf stem to which 
the moth was clinging; the broad wings 
expanded in a flash of alarm. “ Now ! ” 
said Sark. He threw back the cover of the 
death trap ; Rose laid moth and leaf on the 
bottom ; the cover snapped. So, in the 
crystal box the lovely Venus sank into the 
never-ending sleep. 


CHAPTER VI 

A NEW ARRIVAL 

IN WHICH ROSE EMBER LEARNS A NEW GAME 
AND MR. BATTY GIGGLES 

When at length the great green moth had 
breathed its last in the crystal box, Sark 
lifted it with silver forceps and laid it on 
the table. Rose had the setting-board ready 
and the strips of oil-paper cut, but after 
consultation, Sark decided to mount it on 
a glass mould and seal it hermetically, leav- 
ing every section of wing and body visible. 
It took but a few minutes to prepare the 
glass sarcophagus and set the moth by means 
of glass weights with rounded edges. 

“ In two weeks,” said Sark, “ we’ll adjust 

the covers ; ” and he opened his air-tight 
124 


A NEW ARRIVAL 125 

disinfecting vault and placed the dead moth 
on the shelf. 

Rose, contrary to her usual custom, did 
not linger to watch Sark, but washed her 
pink palms at the spout, dried them thought- 
fully, and stepped out of the greenhouse 
into the late afternoon sunshine. 

A breeze was blowing from the lake, bend- 
ing the grass-blades on the hillside, turning 
tender poplar leaves silver-side skyward, and 
mowing furrow after furrow through acres 
of daisies. The white butterflies lost their 
bearings in the wind that blew them butter- 
ing across the Barrens ; a wood-duck, steer- 
ing through the air, veered in the wind and 
plumped into the lake among the breeze- 
tossed lily pads. 

Out of the splendid azure of the west, 
great white clouds crowded, squadron on 
squadron, standing gallantly on their course 
before the wind ; and silvery flaws swept 
the water where the wind’s wing-tips, trail- 
ing, brushed the blue surface of the lake. 


126 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


But it was a very sober and subdued face 
that Rose lifted to tbe rolling heavens ; the 
wind untwisted the bright tendrils of her 
hair and started a deeper tint on lip and 
cheek ; it played with her grey wool skirt, 
it fluttered the ribbon at her belt, it frol- 
icked from the tip of her nose to the 
points of her tan shoes, impudent, intrusive, 
importunate, sparing neither gown nor 
petticoat. 

There may have been fairer pictures in 
the world ; there may be fairer ; but Mr. 
Batty, netting a rare polymorphic form of an 
exceedingly common butterfly, looked out 
of his window and softly vowed that Rose 
Ember in the June wind was the loveliest 
picture ever created. Some such idea may 
have occurred to John Sark, too, as he issued 
from the third greenhouse and walked to 
the brow of the grassy slope where Rose was 
standing. 

She felt his presence before she saw or 
heard him, but she did not move. After a 


A NEW ARRIVAL 


127 


moment, however, she asked him if he needed 
her ; and he said, no. 

“ I believe,” he said, “ that I have been 
overworking ; I shall not bother about those 
notes to-day.” 

She did not reply ; he looked up at the 
big white clouds, he looked out at the tiny 
wind-squalls tracing eccentric trails across 
the lake, he saw the daisies furrowed in the 
wind, and the billows of grass sweeping the 
breezy hill. 

“ Lord ! Lord ! ” he murmured to him- 
self, “how young the world has grown! ” 

She had found a granite boulder, deep 
bedded, sparkling with mica, and she seated 
herself, daintily, her elbow on her knee, her 
wrist propping her delicate chin. 

In her eyes the sky’s blue had found its 
own deep tint reflected ; she mused in 
silence, now absently counting the white 
clouds sailing, now following a wind-blown 
bee, now preoccupied, blue eyes dreaming, 
heavy-lidded, wistfully sweet. 


128 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


The little grass birds came about her 
feet, alert when the wind fluttered her pet- 
ticoat, but not alarmed ; the wild hawk’s 
shadow fell upon her lap, returning again 
and again ; even the swallows left the lake 
and chased each other on the hillside, lacing 
the green grass with their shadows. 

“ What was it you meant when you 
spoke of my going away?” she asked; 
and her voice sounded like an echo, very 
far off. 

“ I came here to tell you,” he said, “ that 
I have sold the house and the land.” 

She did not turn ; the wind frolicked with 
a burnished strand of her hair, then flung 
it glimmering against her paling cheek. 

“ I sold it to your father,” he went on ; 
“ he resold it in your name. It brought a 
very large price ; it brought half a million.” 

She did not move. 

“ You see,” he continued, with the faint- 
est touch of impatience, “ you have a for- 
tune in your own name. Under certain con- 


A NEW ARRIVAL 129 

ditions of the sale it fell to me to invest the 
money for you, and I have written for my old 
English friend, Reginald Lanark, to come 
here because I want his advice concerning 
it. Are you — satisfied with the arrange- 
ment ? He’ll be here this evening.” 

But she would neither turn nor speak, 
and he sat upon the grass and looked sulk- 
ily at the back of her head. 

“ Because,” he added, “ it can’t be helped 
anyway. Your income will be a good one 
at any rate ; you will have absolute control 
of both principal and interest on your 
twenty-first birthday — that is in three or 
four years. Meanwhile it has fallen to me 
to administer the funds, and I shall do it 
with much more circumspection than I 
should use in any matter pertaining to my- 
self. Have you any suggestions to make, 
Miss Ember ? ” 

Without moving she said : u Why should 
that prevent me from aiding you in your 

work ? ” 

9 


130 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


“ At a salary ? ” lie laughed ; “ why, Miss 
Ember, you are an heiress ! ” 

“What of that?” she said quickly; “I 
like my work ! ” 

She turned then, flushed, but self-pos- 
sessed : 

“ The work will be for its own sake and 
not for money. It is what I have wished 
for since I came to help you.” 

He said nothing ; she went on, gravely : 

“You took me at first, not because you 
really expected me to aid you, but because 
I needed the money.” 

He protested, but she continued in the 
same serious voice : 

“ I know I have aided you a great deal ; 
I know I have saved you labour and care and 
trouble ” 

“ You resuscitated those frozen exotics! ” 
he said warmly. 

“ Yes ; I found the proper food for the 
Polyommatus Dispar caterpillar that every- 
body in England believed to be extinct ” 


A NEW ARRIVAL 


131 

“ And you re-set those wretched Florida 
specimens ! ” 

“ And I proved that Arthemis variety to 
be local ! ” 

“ And you named it! ” he exclaimed en- 
thusiastically, Nyniphalis Sarkis ! ” 

u Indeed you deserved the honour! ” she 
cried, with cheeks aglow. 

They began to laugh, she shyly, he ten- 
tatively. 

“I don’t want you to stay away,” he said, 
“ but I supposed you might not care to 
come — now ’ ’ 

“ I do care,” she insisted warmly ; “ I’m 
as much interested as you are. Don’t you 
suppose I want to see those Nitocris cater- 
pillars turn into chrysalids ? You are very 
selfish, I think.” 

“ Dear, dear Miss Ember ! ” he said 
earnestly, “ believe me that the very 
idea ,of your not coming made me al- 
most lose interest in every caterpillar I 
possess ! ” 


i3 2 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


He jumped up and began to walk to and 
fro, bands clasped behind bis back, head 
bent, brow knit. 

She watched him, wondering a little and 
a little disconcerted by his warmth. She 
had always found a discreet pleasure in his 
confidence, she was not unaware that his 
confidence was well placed. But, as she sat 
there on the granite rock, for the first time 
she found pleasure in looking at this tall, 
well-knit, sunburnt young man who had 
relinquished saddle and sabre to set his keen 
grey eye to a microscope. 

Once she remembered having seen him 
in a tennis shirt, arms bare, hurling a base- 
ball at Mr. Batty, and she had thought him 
very muscular and a trifle too straight. 
Now she found his broad shoulders attrac- 
tive, and even the sunburn on his forehead, 
below the white circle left by his hat, seemed 
to possess a certain curious and alarming 
fascination for her. 

He was coming toward her now, the sun 


A NEW ARRIVAL 


133 


at his back, and his long shadow fell across 
her knees. 

“ I want you to come,” he said, “ I shall 
miss you terribly if you stay away. But 
your father is not friendly to me, Miss 
Ember, and I believe he will not wish you 
to come. If he permits it, I shall welcome 
you thankfully.” 

“ I shall come,” said Rose, smiling, but 
her breath failed for a moment, and her little 
heart beat furiously. 

As though her father could prevent her 
from coming ! She had suffered enough 
without that — she had clung to her father 
through evil days, she had known the terror 
of a child shrinking before the vacant stare 
of a drunkard, she had tasted the shame of 
his disgrace, she had seen eyes averted from 
her in pity, she had heard careless contempt 
in the voices of those whom her father called 
his friends. In the crash of his hopes and 
fortunes she too had gone down ; she had 
taken up her life again with him, there on 


134 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


the edge of the Barrens, expecting nothing, 
crushed, humiliated, glad of the isolation. 
Then one day Sark had come, and the next 
day she had gone to him ; and it seemed 
to her that the sun had been shining over 
Amber Lake from that first never-forgotten 
day. 

Had it come to an end, this happiness that 
had sought her out, unsought ? 

“ I will come ! ” she repeated obstinately, 
forgetting she had spoken. 

Come? Indeed she would ! Was it not 
enough to spend her nights in the sordid 
home on the Barrens ? She loved her father, 
— she loved him with that fierce loyalty that 
had kept her at his side even when his own 
drunken associates shunned him — for his 
hopeless degradation. But she would not 
give up Sark ! 

Suddenly conscious of what it meant to 
her she turned sharply around, and the 
waves of crimson tingled across her face. 

Was it Sark she feared to part with? 


A NEW ARRIVAL 


135 


Was it true that the butterflies were nothing 
to her ? 

Sark, behind her, was speaking. She sat 
down on her granite boulder again, reso- 
lutely recovering her composure, forcing 
herself to stay and listen when she was quite 
aware that she would rather go away some- 
where and lock a door between her and 
everybody until she had arranged her 
thoughts. 

Sark was saying : “ There is one thing 
that I ought to tell you about, and yet I feel 
almost ashamed to mention it. Last night 
some horsemen came here and nailed a paper 
to my door. It was a sort of threat, you 
know — and — and perhaps you might not 
care to come if the White-caps are going 
to quarrel with me.” 

She was listening now ; the wind tore a 
burnished lock from its confining hairpin 
and set it blowing across her eyes, but she 
did not heed it. 

“ I fancy they may come again,” con- 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


136 

tinued Sark, “ of course I shall not budge 
for them — and — and perhaps there might 
be trouble.” 

He was very apologetic, disliking to 
dignify the incident by repeating it to 
her, but he thought she ought to know it 
before she decided to continue as his as- 
sistant. 

“ I suspect nobody,” he said ; “ I have no 
particular clue, except this ” 

He drew the cambric mask from his pocket, 
and, stepping up beside her, laid it in her 
lap. 

She did not touch it at first ; suddenly she 
picked it up, held it a moment, then dropped 
it again in her lap. 

“ Do you think I have any fear ? ” she 
said unsteadily. 

“ Have you none ? ” he asked. 

“ None.” 

They were silent for a long time. The 
sun went down into the Barrens ; the pur- 
ple light wavered out across the waste. 


A NEW ARRIVAL 


137 


Strings of birds passed overhead through a 
sky of palest rose ; a field insect set up its 
strident monotone, almost at their feet. 
Down on the lake the fish were leaping 
and splashing after wind-wrecked gnats, 
and the night-hawks sailed and swooped 
and sheered the glimmering ripples with 
the faint rose glint on their white-barred 
wings. Far away in the darkening Bar- 
rens an owl repeated his ghostly call ; 
a star shimmered through the waning 
after-glow. 

Rose looked up into the air where the 
bats were soaring, darting, turning and 
tumbling among the midges, she looked out 
across the lake where a faint light, reflected 
in the water, grew imperceptibly yellower 
and brighter. Night was settling over all 
like a vast grey web. 

He offered to bring her hat and jacket 
but she refused, saying she must go. For 
the first time since she had come to the 
house she declined to remain to dinner, say- 


138 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

in g she was needed at home, that she was 
tired with the day’s excitement, too, and was 
quite ready to sleep. 

“ I shall not know what to do without 
you at table ” blurted out Sark. 

She turned to him with the first trace of 
coquetry, bidding him console himself with 
his expected guest. 

“ Lanark is all very well,” said Sark 
moodily, walking back to the house with 
her, “but I had expected you to stay — I 
never had any idea you wouldn’t.” 

“Why, I can’t always preside at your 
table, you know,” said Rose, trying not to 
feel excited at this new game she was learn- 
ing with such alarming facility. 

“ Why not ? ” said Sark before he knew 
just what he was saying. 

A delicious tremor of fear set Rose Em- 
ber’s heart beating fast again. 

“ Because,” she said without giving her- 
self time to stammer, “ you are going away 
in a year — and so am I.” 


A NEW ARRIVAL 


139 


“ Where are you going ? ” he asked in con- 
sternation. 

Rose turned her delicate nose skyward : 

“ Oh, how do I know yet ? ” she said 
airily. 

John Sark felt himself on the brink of 
saying something important, and he cer- 
tainly would have said it had not the form 
of Mr. Batty loomed up in the path before 
him. 

Looking back on the situation some hours 
later he wondered just what it was he had 
been about to say. He could not remember, 
and it agitated him to forget, for he was 
certain that the observation had been very 
important. Instead, however, he said : 
“ What the deuce are you up to, Batty ? ” in 
such an irritable voice that Mr. Batty apol- 
ogised ; r doing nothing but existing, and 
Rose >umed a sudden cordiality toward 
' im that Sark found vaguely distasteful. 

* .Re inald Lanark is here,” said Mr. 
Batt\ ‘ he drove in from Heavy Falls.” 


140 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

“ Well, what’s Lanark got to say for him- 
self?” asked Sark with an ungracious 
directness totally foreign to his nature. 
Somehow he associated Lanark’s coming 
with Rose Ember’s going away, — it was 
ridiculous, but he did — and it depressed 
him. 

“ He didn’t say much,” said Mr. Batty, 
“ except that he was hungry. He swore 
when he said it.” 

“ You’ll be a very jolly company,” said 
Rose Ember, handing her jacket to Mr. 
Batty ; “ you deserve one evening all to 
yourselves — oh, thank you, Mr. Batty, I 
can tuck in the sleeves.” 

Sark watched Mr. Batty aid her with her 
jacket in moody silence. She noticed his 
reticence ; it pleased and frightened her at 
the same time. 

“ Good night, Mr. Batty,” she said ; then 
to Sark, “ good night.” 

He said good night in a heavy, digrined 
manner that struck him as being skghtly 


A NEW ARRIVAL 


141 

silly, too. It struck Rose, however, differ- 
ently ; she felt suddenly very, very young, 
and that her youth was a reproach in his 
eyes. 

After she had gone, Mr. Batty, leaning 
on Sark, almost skipped as he entered the 
house. 

“ Positively I feel the buoyancy of boy- 
hood to-night,” he said, and giggled as he 
said it, a proceeding that wearied Sark un- 
utterably. 

Lanark was standing in the smoking- 
room, scowling at the dining-room door 
when they entered. 

“ Upon my word ! ” he said, shaking 
hands viciously with Sark, “ are you trying 
to starve me out, Jack? Give me food, for 
the love of Mike! Pve driven from the 
Falls, man, on one of your damned Yankee 
buggies, and the shake-up I’ve had on an 
empty stomach has started a partial diges- 
tion of my own liver ! ” 

“Look at that!” said Sark, “there’s 


142 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


your Englishman bawling for his roast 
beef, though the heavens fall. It’s in- 
decent, Reginald, but then you don’t under- 
stand that. You’ll go out with a four- 
ounce rod and catch your own breakfast in 
the morning anyhow, so come on ! — come 
on, Batty ! By Jingo, I feel like a subaltern 
of twenty and the old 7th Cavalry band 
playing 1 Garryowen ’ ! ” 


CHAPTER VII 


MISS EMBER SEWS 

A CHAPTER DEVOTED TO A FAMILY DIS- 
PUTE, AND A MIDNIGHT INTERVIEW 

When Rose Ember reached her home on 
the Barrens, the last glimmer of daylight 
had faded from the sky, the night mists 
filled every hollow with spectral lakes, and 
the grey owls hooted in the hemlocks. The 
evening chill had already dulled the pun- 
gent odour of spruce and fern, and the rank, 
cold scent of the moorlands came creeping 
out of the west across the waste. 

There was a lamp lighted in the living- 
room ; she crossed the short veranda and 
entered. Her father sat at the table, clean- 
ing the cylinder of a heavy revolver. 

143 


144 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

He Had not expected to see Her; sHe 
Had never before returned until eight 
o’clock at the earliest, to cook his dinner 
for Him. 

“ What’s the matter? ” he said sullenly ; 
“ I don’t want to eat for two hours yet.” 

He drank too much to eat very much. 
About ten o’clock, however, he wanted his 
dinner, when he was sober. Rose saw at 
once that he was sober now. u I was tired,” 
she said ; “ I have something to tell you, 
too.” 

She sat down on the piano stool, nerv- 
ously stripping her gloves from her chilled 
hands. 

“ Why are you cleaning your revolver?” 
she asked suddenly. 

“ Because I need it,” he said, drawing the 
oiled rag through the blue steel barrel. 

For a moment she watched him without 
comment. He fitted the cylinder into the 
breach, tested the ejector, oiled it, tested 
the lock, then, lifting the weapon, snapped 


MISS EMBER SEWS 


145 


it six times in rapid succession to try the 
self-cocking mechanism. 

“ Papa,” she said, “ what did the White 
Riders do last night ? ” 

“ I told you once,” he said shortly. 

“ Yon told me the Riders were going to 
run a dangerous man out of the country.” 

“ They are,” he answered, stripping the 
lid from a new box of cartridges. 

“ What man?” 

“ Don’t bother me,” he said, and began 
to lay the cartridges in rows on the table- 
cloth. 

“ Are yon going with them ? ” she per- 
sisted. 

“ Yes, — and by the way, I want you to 
make me a new mask ; you needn’t tear up 
another handkerchief ; I got some stuff at 
Murden’s this evening.” 

He began to fill a leather cartridge belt 
with the ammunition ; she came over to the 
table, resting both hands heavily upon it. 

“ Who is the man ? ” she asked steadily. 

10 


\ 


1 46 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

“ None of your business ! ” he snapped. 
But still she repeated her question until 
irritation seized him and he flung down the 
cartridge belt with an oath : 

“ I’ll tell you who it is ! It’s that sneak 
John Sark, and we’ll run him out of Amber 
Lake to a tune of our own whistling. And 
now let me tell you something ; the man is 
after you to marry you and I won’t have it, 
do you hear ? ” 

Every word hurt her like the shameful 
sting of a lash, but she still replied in a 
steady voice : 

“ He has never spoken to me of that ; I 
am nothing to him.” 

“ You’re something to him now,” sneered 
Ember ; “I suppose he has told you how he 
robbed me to make you an heiress. Don’t 
you think he knew what he was about ? 
What did he sell his land to me for when 
he knew something was in the wind. To 
keep his promise? Perhaps — and perhaps 
because he meant to keep his reputation for 


MISS EMBER SEWS 


A7 


a square man and get the money too. I tell 
you I won’t have it! — I won’t have him 
sneak in and pocket you and your half 
million ! ” 

Rose had turned very white ; suddenly it 
flashed upon her that Sark, for the first time 
since she had known him, had looked at her 
and spoken to her in a manner that she 
knew was more than disinterested. But the 
momentary shadow of suspicion shamed her, 
and she opened her voice in a passionate 
protest against the slander on Sark and on 
herself : 

“It is not true, — it is cruel and wicked to 
say it ! He cares nothing for money — he 
needs none ; he who holds bargaining and 
buying and selling in contempt, do you 
think he would buy a woman for the money 
he himself has found for her in the wilder- 
ness ! He never spoke to me in that way ; 
he cares only for his work ! What has he 
done to you ? And do you think that the 
White Riders can drive him away ? Do you 


i 4 8 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

know this man whom you expect to scare 
like a partridge out of the Barrens ? You 
don’t wish to kill him, do you ? Oh — you 
mean murder! ” 

“ I mean he shall leave the Lake ! ” cried 
Ember, exasperated. 

“ He never will until his year has ended ! ” 
said Rose, terribly excited ; “ and if you 
attack him he’ll fight ! Do you want to be 
killed ! — do you want to have others killed ! 
— I tell you I know he will shoot you all 
down if you raid him again.” 

“ It will be his last shot, then ! ” roared 
Ember; “mind your own business, I tell 
you ; I guess I know what I’m about. Go 
and make that mask ; I’ll want it to-night ! ” 

She clung to him, pushing the revolver 
away, flinging belt and cartridges to the 
floor. She begged him not to do this thing, 
she pleaded for herself now, — for, in spite 
of everything, she loved her father, — she 
offered him the money that would be hers 
when she came of age, imploring him to 


MISS EMBER SEWS 


149 


take it, insisting that it was useless to her if 
he were not with her to enjoy it. 

Her terror touched the man ; in his own 
way he was proud of her, too. 

“ Sark’s got the money ; I can’t touch it,” 
he said ; “let go of me, Rose, there’s no 
need worrying about me, for the bullet isn’t 
moulded that is coming my way.” 

He pushed her back into a chair, not too 
gently. 

“ If you want to stop this business, you 
can,” he said. 

She stared at him with new terror in her 
blue eyes. Instinctively she knew what he 
was going to say, and stretched out her 
hand to stop him ; but he went on without 
pity : 

“ Give me your promise never to marry 
that fellow Sark, — never to go near him 
again, — never to see him ! ” 

Her pallid face enraged him ; he struck 
the table with his clenched hand and swore 
that Sark should never have her. 


150 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

“ There’s a good man wants you,” he 
snarled ; “ Murden wants you, and you know 
it, and — you treat him like a cur ! ” 

Her horrified eyes almost drove him into 
a frenzy. 

“ Very well ! ” he cried. “ I guess you’re 
not as much afraid of my getting a bullet 
through my head as you are afraid Sark 
will ! And, by God ! if he doesn’t get out 
of Amber Lake he’ll have bullets to burn in 
hell ! ” 

She crept away to her own chamber, 
utterly crushed. For a long while she sat 
there in the darkness, crying silently, until 
her father called up the stairs, asking for 
his mask, and cursing when he found she 
had not made it. 

She lighted the lamp. With the light, 
the numbed, hopeless terror seemed to slip 
away ; she could think, too, even while work- 
ing on the white bit of cloth, damp with her 
tears ; and, as her needle faltered, then went 
on again, she set her little teeth and bent 


MISS EMBER SEWS 


151 

her eyebrows with a resolution to see what 
stuff these White Riders were made of. 

When she had finished her father’s mask, 
she went into the kitchen and cooked his 
supper. There was not enough for two, but 
she did not want anything except a cup of 
tea to strengthen her for the work she had 
in hand. 

While he was eating, she slipped up-stairs 
again, drew from her bosom the cambric 
mask that Sark had given her, and examined 
her own handiwork closely. 

Presently she hid it under her pillow, 
threw back the bed-clothes, selected a linen 
sheet, and drew it gingerly from the bed. 
Then she began to cut it, double it, meas- 
ure and baste it with a rapidity that made 
her white fingers fly. 

Toward midnight a curious sound from 
the northward brought her to the window. 
The next moment she extinguished the lamp 
behind her and, creeping to the window 
again, leaned her face against the glass. 


152 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

What she saw was a horseman dismount- 
ing at the porch below, and she raised the 
window a little way and whispered : “ Mr. 
Murden ! ” 

The figure below looked up sharply. 

“ Get me a horse,’ ’ she said in a low voice, 
“ and don’t tell my father that I want it. 
Wait ! I’m coming down.” 

She slipped out of the door in the rear, 
descended the outside steps cautiously, and 
met Murden at the foot of them. 

“ What do you want of a horse? ” asked 
Murden, with a stealthy glance of admira- 
tion at the exquisite face in the starlight. 

“ I want to ride ; father would never allow 
me, — besides, I am busy all day and have 
no time. I am longing for a gallop in the 
dark — will you take me ? ” 

“ I can’t,” said Murden, inwardly cursing 
his luck, “ I’ve an engagement to-night. 
But I’ll go to-morrow,” he added eagerly. 

“ No,” she said pettishly, “ I want to go 
to-night. Of course I can go alone.” 


MISS EMBER SEWS 


153 


“ I can’t go,” lie said, with a bitter glance 
out into the Barrens ; “ didn’t your father 
tell you that the White Riders were in the 
saddle ? ” 

“ Then — never mind ” she said coquet- 
tishly ; “I know you would come if you 
could. When can I have my horse ? ” 

“ Don’t go to-night,” he urged. “ I will 
take you for a starlight gallop to-morrow 
night.” 

“ No, thank you,” she said coldly, and 
turned to reascend the steps. 

“ Don’t be mad at me,” pleaded Murden, 
stepping heavily forward, — “ wait ! I’ll 
bring you a horse if you want to ride — I’ll 
get you one to-morrow.” 

“ I want it now ! ” she said. 

“ Now ? It’s midnight ! ” 

“ I don’t care ; I want a gallop ! Isn’t 
the Heavy Falls road good ? ” 

“Yes,” he said, — “but don’t go on the 
Spook Bridge road — there — there’s a hole in 
the bridge and ruts everywhere. If you 


154 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

want a gallop, there's a horse in your father’s 
barn there. Wait until the White Riders 
leave, and then yon can have your gal- 
lop — only keep away from the Spook 
Bridge ! ” 

“ Whose horse is it? ” 

“ Your father s ; he has two.” 
u Did you give them to him ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ For this White Rider raid ? ” 

“ Yes — but be careful what you say, Miss 

Ember ” 

“ Who is the man ? ” 

“ Nobod)q” said Murden eagerly, “ that 
is — we’re cleaning the bad men out of 
Weazeltown. Good-night, Miss Ember — 
and I shall come to ride with you to-morrow 
evening.” He lingered wistfully, hoping 
for another flash of coquetry from the silent 
girl on the stairs above him. But she 
entered the house without turning again, 
closing the door softly behind her. 

When she had lighted the lamp again she 


MISS EMBER SEWS 


155 


sat down to her sewing, cheeks bright with 
colour, fingers flying, needle glittering like 
tiny white lightning in the lamplight. 

She neared the end of her task ; a strange 
bird began calling persistently through the 
darkness, and she caught the muffled tramp 
of hoofs and the stir and movement of many 
men. 

She stood up, both arms full of the white 
drapery she had been sewing on, listening 
intently. 

Again the strange bird uttered its quaint 
sweet note. She lowered the lamp-wick, 
extinguished the flame with a breath, and 
stole down into the silent, empty house, 
carrying her pile of linen in both arms, and 
holding the cambric mask between her 
little teeth. 

Then, at the door there came a tapping, 
and she flung her disguise upon the floor 
and went to the porch. It was only a dark- 
skinned man in velveteens who whined ! 

“ Cross my palm with silver, lady, — cross 


156 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

my palm in the name of the man you 
love ” 

And she flung him a coin, shuddering, 
and crept back to her dark room, to bury 
her head in the pillows and weep till dawn. 


CHAPTER VIII 


A study in white 

RELATING HOW MR. BATTY FOUND A VISION 
IN SPOTLESS RAIMENT AND LOST IT, AND 
HOW SARK PAID FOR SOME EXCEEDINGLY 
POOR POETRY. 

Meanwhile, earlier in the evening, Sark 
sat at the head of his dinner table, listen- 
ing to Lanark’s enthusiastic description of 
the fishing among the Sagamore hills, and 
attempting to prevent Mr Batty from over- 
eating himself on the potted sanglier. 

When Lanark had lighted a large fra- 
grant cigar, he expressed his readiness and 
ability to confer with Sark on any topic, 
including business and the theory concern- 
ing the transmigration of souls. 

*57 


i 5 8 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


“ Talk here,” said Sark ; “ I’ll put a rod 
in skape for you while you prattle, if you 
like.” 

So Molly cleared the table for action, 
leaving nothing but a battery of charged 
glasses and decanters on the polished ma- 
hogany, and Sark brought out his reels and 
flies and leaders, while Mr. Batty, who had 
been rashly exciting himself with truffles 
and Burgundy, went into the parlour to 
play mad battle marches on the piano and 
troll passionate catches to his own accom- 
paniment, in a voice like the complaint of 
a newly hatched chicken. 

“ First,” said Lanark, “ let me tell you 
about your railroad.” 

“ No, no, drop that just now. You re- 
ceived my letter of course ? ” 

“ I did,” said the young lawyer, “ and I 
couldn’t make head nor tail of it, except that 
you are intending to make ducks and drakes 
of the U. & C. extension scheme ” 

“ All right; never mind that now; what 


A STUDY IN WHITE 


159 

I want to know is how we are going to 
invest these funds I hold in trust.” 

“ Put ’em into the road’s bonds of course,” 
said Lanark cheerfully. 

“ No,” said Sark, “ I want something gilt- 
edged, Reggy.” 

“ Well, I like that ? ” cried Lanark ; “ don’t 
you call your own railroad gilt-edged ? ” 

“ Perhaps ; but I won’t risk trust funds 
in it,” said Sark coolly, selecting a tapered 
grassline and winding it carefully on a 
rubber reel. “ Now leave the U. & C. 
out, and fire ahead ! ” 

“ Oh, very well,” sniffed Lanark, pulling 
hard at his cigar, “ there’s another line we 
can pursue of course, if you insist.” And 
he leaned back in his chair and ran over 
several plans for the safe investment of 
Rose Ember’s money. 

Sark listened intently, reeling up his line, 
selecting fly after fly from box and book, 
and placing half a dozen mist-coloured 
leaders in the tin leader box. 


*60 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

Certainly Lanark knew his business ; 
and, when Sark interrupted him to say that 
he would rather lose every dollar he had 
than a single penny of the funds in trust, 
the young lawyer nodded and said he under- 
stood that perfectly. 

At last they came to an understanding 
on the question ; Lanark helped himself to 
the sherry with a sigh, and leaned over to see 
what Sark had been doing with the tackle. 

“ Those flies are too large,” he observed, 
pushing the box toward Sark. 

“ Nonsense,” said Sark, “ don’t you sup- 
pose I know this lake ? ” 

The proximity of the tackle fired Lanark 
with desire. He picked up a light rod, 
joined it, swung it gingerly, avoiding the 
ceiling, and finally attached the reel. 

“ I’m going to take a cast this evening,” 
he said ; “ will you come, Jack ? ” 

“ I’ll paddle you about ; I don’t care to 
spend my evening disentangling my line,” 
laughed Sark. 


A STUDY IN WHITE 161 

Mr. Batty was still enthusiastically as- 
saulting the piano in the parlor, and Sark 
called to him : “ Oh, shut up that noise and 
come fishing ! ” 

“ He’ll tip the boat,’’ suggested Lanark, 
as Mr. Batty, beaming through his spec- 
tacles, came skipping unsteadily at the 
summons of his superior. 

“ I’m shocked, Batty,” observed Sark ; 
11 go and row yourself sober on the lake. 
Come on, Reggie, I’ll pull you about a bit.” 

Sark’s boat-house rose from the water’s 
edge just below the Spook Bridge. He 
kept a few small boats there, fitted for 
entomological researches in the lake, and, 
into one of these, he ushered Lanark. Then 
he stowed Mr. Batty away in a horrible 
species of skiff, almost paralyzed with eel- 
grass, and sadly in need of rowlocks. 

It was in vain for Mr. Batty to protest ; 
Sark flung two unsightly oars into the craft, 
unhooked the painter and shoved Mr. Batty 
into deep water where he struck out franti- 

ii 


1 62 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

cally with one oar until the boat spun round 
and round like a wounded duck. 

Meanwhile Lanark waited with loosened 
line, and presently Sark appeared with a 
lantern, closing the boat-house door behind 
him. 

They set out silently : Sark paddled ; the 
little night creatures came swarming around 
the lantern in the stern, flashing like flakes 
of tinsel in and out of its yellow rays. 

“ Batty ! ” called out Sark, “ stop that 
splashing ! We’re not after porpoises, you 
know ! ” 

Mr. Batty in his unwieldy craft floated 
sullenly out into the lake before the breeze, 
and, presently they heard him attune his 
innocuous voice to the summer wind, sing- 
ing of love as he drifted resignedly away. 

“ He’ll sober fast enough when it comes 
to pulling back again,” said Sark ; “ now, 
Reggie, fling your tackle to the breeze, open 
your eyes, shut your mouth, and see what 
heaven will send you ! ” 


A STUDY IN WHITE 163 

Heaven must have been listening for its 
cue ; a heavy splash, another, and then a 
swirling flop and a slack line told a heart- 
breaking tale of lost opportunity. 

“ Confound it ! ” muttered Lanark, “ he 
jumped at the flies but I struck too slowly. 
I’m all in a tangle, Jack.” 

He reeled in to disengage the line ; 
Sark set the lantern beside him, then settled 
back comfortably to smoke and stare at the 
stars that seemed to grow brighter and 
yellower while he looked. 

Mr. Batty’s feeble warble had ceased ; in 
the evening silence the slap of tiny waves 
on bow and stern made mellow music, ac- 
cented at intervals by the dull splash of a 
fish surging from dusky depths to spring 
quivering into the starlight. 

Against the pale radiance of the heavens a 
mass of black foliage detached itself from 
the invisible shore ; tiny lights gleamed in 
the north where Murden’s store and the 
shanties stood, and a single yellow lantern 


164 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

hung from the flag-pole of the dark dis- 
tillery. Shoreward, too, the thin chorus 
of the night insects came faintly to their 
ears when the wind set right; sometimes 
they heard the breeze ruffle the lily-pads, 
sometimes a water fowl came whistling 
past to drop into the lake with a whirring 
spatter. 

Lanark, swearing in eloquent whispers, 
was still picking at the tangled flies as they 
drifted along a shore where the wild laurel 
and rhododendron swept the dark water with 
great clusters of pink and white bloom. 

A mink swam across the bows, leaving a 
shimmering fan-shaped trail in his wake, 
ever widening until it merged into the tiny 
wavelets that criss-crossed the breeze-stirred 
waters. 

Sark was contented ; he lay back lazily, 
breathing the deep sweet incense of lake 
and forest, blinking peacefully at the stars 
that winked at him with their limpid eyes. 
He heard the water lap on bow and stern, 


A STUDY IN WHITE 165 

he heard the still sounds in the forest, he 
heard Lanark’s quaint anathemas, and the 
hum of gnats around the lantern. 

He was very comfortable ; he had just 
been thinking of Rose Ember, idly, pleas- 
antly, when Lanark said, “ Damn,” and 
stood up in the boat. 

“ I’ve snipped off two flies,” he said vin- 
dictively ; “I can’t manage more than one 
at night. Shall I cast here, Jack ? ” 

“ Go ahead,” replied Sark. 

For an hour the measured swish of the 
silk sounded over his head ; he smoked and 
listened, paddling quietly hither and thither, 
but no trout broke the dark surface of the 
lake to oblige Lanark, and that yotftig man 
expressed his weariness in picturesque met- 
aphors. 

a Try a luminous fly,” said Sark ; “ I 
hooked one to your cap.” 

The evening had grown warmer ; one by 
one the stars went out ; the perfume from 
the forest grass grew sweeter and heavier. 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


1 66 

“ Rain ? ” queried Lanark, fumbling with 
his luminous fly. 

“ Probably,” yawned Sark, “ but not be- 
fore morning.” 

After a moment he added : “ I thought I 
heard voices out there on the water.” 

“ You did,” said Lanark ; “ I think I can 
make out two boats.” 

As he spoke, a voice broke out into soft, 
soulful melody, accompanied by the tinkle 
of a wire-stringed banjo. 

“ It’s Batty,” said Sark. 

In point of fact it was Mr. Batty. Highly 
spiced food and Burgundy unwisely sipped 
had sent him out upon the lake a changed 
Batty — a rash, impetuous, yearning Batty. 
And, as he drifted he found himself side on 
to another craft in the darkness, — a dainty 
little row-boat in which sat a young lady in 
white, regarding him with deep concern. 

“ At first,” she said, “ I thought you meant 
to sink me.” 

“ Dear me ! ” cried Mr. Batty ; (( I am 


A STUDY IN WHITE 


167 


very, very sorry — it was the truffles — I 
mean the oar-locks — and I beg your pardon 
very sincerely.” 

But as the boats still clung obstinately 
together, and as the girl made no effort to pull 
away from the weed-clogged craft, they spun 
around in circles until Mr. Batty was tired. 

“ You are not much of an oar, are you ? ” 
asked the girl. 

“ I can never regret my lack of skill 
under such conditions,” replied Mr. Batty 
in a spasm of gallantry. 

If the girl had not been very young and 
very lonely, what actually did happen would 
not have occurred. However, it did occur ; 
she let her boat drift where it listed, quite 
resigned, for she had not seen a man in 
many months — that is a man of moderate 
years ; and so, as far as she was concerned, 
the boats could drift to where the water- 
lilies twined. 

“ Oh, play upon that banjoline ! ” pleaded 
Mr. Batty, clasping both hands, after they 


1 68 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

Had floated about in silence for ten throb- 
bing minutes. 

The abruptness of the prayer for harmony 
was softened by Mr. Batty’s modulated at- 
titude and his imploring voice. Besides, he 
had the good taste to refer to the instrument 
as a “ banjoline ” — an inspiration of the 
moment, replete with poetry. Now Miss 
Alida Guernsey had never heard a plain 
nigger banjo apostrophised so delicately. 
She looked not unkindly upon Mr. Batty 
and touched the instrument with a small 
tentative thumb. 

“ I never could,” she said. 

“ Do — oh do ! ” whispered Mr. Batty, 
“ and I will sing.” 

But still she coyly refused, and the boats, 
interlocked, drifted before an idle and mis- 
chievous wind into the darkness sweet with 
wild wood fragrance and troubled by the 
paling glimmer of star-lit waters. 

“ My goodness ! ” said Miss Guernsey, 
“ what was that splash ? ” 


A STUDY IN WHITE 169 

“ Only a duck,” said Mr. Batty tenderly ; 
“ only a little wild duck. I had some for 
dinner, intensely truffled.” 

No, he was not a normal Batty : pate and 
Burgundy had undone him ; he had sold his 
shyness for a mess of truffles. 

After the starlight had its effect, and 
their tongues found speech sweeter than 
silence, they told each other their names 
and residences. 

“ I have no parents,” observed Miss 
Guernsey, clasping her knee with both 
hands. “ I live with my uncle, Mr. Guern- 
sey, in the summer, and with my maiden 
aunt, Miss Gumble, in winter. Why do 
you and Mr. Sark never come to our 
house? ” 

“ I would have if I had known you were 
there,” replied that rash and burning para- 
phrase on the real Mr. Batty. 

“ There is to be a house party at my 
uncle’s and one at Mr. Creed’s ; lots of 
people are coming ; we are to have dances 


170 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

and picnics and Venetian water-f£tes and 
very jolly times. Do you know why ? ” 

“ No, I don’t,” replied Mr. Batty, envi- 
ously. 

“ Well, it is to celebrate a great financial 
deal and a great deal of fiangailles — it’s 
horrid to make such a pun — and I don’t 
feel much like it either.” 

“ Whose fian9ailles ? ” inquired Mr. 
Batty, much disturbed. 

“ Oh, mine and Samuel Creed’s — old Mr. 
Joshua’s son,” she replied, as though speak- 
ing of an event connected with people whom 
she knew only by name. 

“ Yours ! ” bleated Mr. Batty. 

“ Yes ; I don’t care.” 

“ Oh, but I do ! ” protested that infatuated 
victim of starlight and Burgundy ; “ I care 
— I care most — most atrociously, most poign- 
antly ! ” 

“ Why ? ” asked this very youthful maid, 
picking her banjo strings pensively. 

“ I cannot put it in words,” said Mr. 


A STUDY IN WHITE 


m 

Batty earnestly, “ but I can make you feel a 
wild, subtle, nameless meaning in my songs. 
Ob, Miss Guernsey, do you, do you play, 
1 Primrose Promises ’ ? If you do, play it and 
let me sing it to tbe stars and — to you ! ” 

And so it came about tbat Reginald Lan- 
ark, reeling in bis dripping line, turned 
around as Sark spoke, and observed two 
boats drifting, side on, across tbeir bows. 

“ IPs Batty,” repeated Sark, “ with a girl 
and a banjo ! Where in tbe name of all 
miracles be found tbat combination on 
Amber Lake at midnight is more than I can 
guess.” 

Lanark, who bad an offer at bis luminous 
fly, only grunted a reply, but when, a mo- 
ment later, be raised tbe fish for tbe second 
time and missed it, because Mr. Batty’s 
weedy scow came sailing over tbe spot where 
the trout lay, be raised his voice in anguish : 

“ ’Ware boat ! ” be cried ; “ don’t blank 
us for heaven’s sake ! I’ve been at this 
for hours and just missed my second rise ! ” 


172 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


Mr. Batty’s twin goggles glittered with a 
baleful basilisk glow in the lantern light ; 
Miss Guernsey looked up in confusion to 
meet the puzzled eyes of Sark. 

“ I had no idea that Mr. Batty and I were 
drifting near anybody,” she said truthfully. 
“ Won’t you please excuse us for spoiling 
your fishing ? ’’ 

Her skilful assumption of a previous 
acquaintanceship with Mr. Batty showed her 
to be a girl of resource. But, for that 
matter, all girls are, under similar circum- 
stances. It is only man who becomes an 
abject, hesitating, stammering idiot. 

Lanark and Sark took off their caps ; 
there was a pause during which they and 
Miss Guernsey looked hard at Mr. Batty. 
However, he had sufficient presence of mind 
to present the two men in decent form, but 
added : “ I didn’t see your lantern ; if I had 
I’d have sheered off.” 

The loss of every trout in the lake is 
sufficiently recompensed by this unlooked- 


A STUDY IN WHITE 


173 


for honour,” said Sark, a trifle maliciously. 
Lanark also said something civil about offer- 
ing his rod to Miss Guernsey. 

“ But — you would have to show me how,” 
she said diffidently. 

“ That would be very easy,” replied Lan- 
ark, “ if I was sure your boat would hold 
two — and you cared to have me teach 
you — ” 

“ It was built for two,” said Miss Guern- 
sey innocently. 

A hollow sound burst from Mr. Batty as 
Lanark dexterously transferred himself from 
Sark’s boat into the frail row-boat, but the 
splash of the rocking boats softened it to a 
sigh, which tribute was not lost on the fickle 
maid in white muslin. 

“ You must stay close to us and sing, Mr. 
Batty,” she said graciously, but that blighted 
gentleman haughtily unhooked his painter, 
splashed around in a circle for a while, and 
finally melted away shoreward. After a few 
moments his voice was heard in song, far 


174 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


away in the night, mournful, dramatic, and 
inexpressibly soulful. It was the Swan-Song 
of Lionel Batty. 

“ I was afraid that — perhaps — Mr. Batty 
might feel deserted,” ventured Miss Guern- 
sey. 

But Lanark was too busy teaching her to 
cast, to think about anything else. 

“ You hold your hand so,” he said. 

“ So ? ” 

“ Yes — it’s so dark I can’t teach you very 
well. Where is your hand ? ” 

“ Here. Can’t you feel it ? ” 

“ Yes — now I can.” 

Sark, drifting out into the lake, lighted 
another cigar and listened to the murmur 
of their voices. He had known little Miss 
Guernsey by sight ; he had seen her pad- 
dling about the lake in her lonely little boat, 
and had often felt sorry for her. 

“ But,” he reflected, “ I didn’t know Batty 
and she were on such pleasant terms. You 
can always trust those rosy-faced, bald, be- 


A STUDY IN WHITE 


175 


spectacled young men for knowing every 
petticoat in their precinct.” 

By the dim glow of his cigar he consulted 
his watch. It was past midnight, and he 
was tired, and — anyway that little Guernsey 
girl ought not to be floating about in the 
dark at that hour. So he went back to make 
himself unpopular by announcing the hour 
with dreary, uncompromising directness. 

She would not allow them to accompany 
her back to the dock across the lake, bidding 
them depart very prettily; and presently 
she disappeared, pulling gracefully into the 
darkness, now unlighted by a single star. 

“ What a pretty little thing ! ” said Lanark, 
settling himself in the stern. 

“ You couldn’t see her,” observed Sark 
drily. 

“ No, but her voice — and such a soft little 
hand — I was showing her how to cast,” he 
added hastily. 

“ Quite so,” replied Sark ; “ and you can 
paddle a bit now if you like.” 


176 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


“Not I,” replied Lanark promptly ; “ de- 
velop your muscles, Jack, and let me develop 
my theory.” 

“ Wkat theory? ” snapped Sark, picking 
up the oars and sending the skiff shooting 
through the darkness. 

“ Oh, a theory of mine concerning things,” 
replied Lanark vaguely, and relapsed into 
silence. He was thinking of Alida Guern- 
sey and applying to her a theory of his which 
had held true for many years. It was the 
theory of the uselessness of women in the 
world, but somehow or other it did not 
seem applicable to the little maid in white 
muslin. 

“ A study in white,” he said aloud, — “ a 
perfect study in innocence and white.” 

“ What ? ” asked Sark, backing water and 
swinging broadside on to the boat-house 
landing. 

The next moment he bent forward, blew 
out the lantern, flung his cigar into the water 
and seized Lanark by the arm. “ Quiet, 


A STUDY IN WHITE 


77 


Reggie,” lie whispered ; “ drop your cigar 
into the lake, quick ! ” 

“What the devil is the matter?” whis- 
pered Lanark in reply, doing as he was bid- 
den. 

“ White-caps ! I ought to have told you 
— I ought to have stayed at home — hark 1 ” 

The low sweet call of a strange night bird 
broke out in the darkness ; a second call an- 
swered it from the dim hillside. Something 
was moving up there ; there came the soft 
trample of horses on the sod, a clink of a 
horse-shoe striking a pebble, then sudden 
silence. 

“ There’s somebody moving in the boat- 
house,” whispered Lanark. 

There was ; Mr. Batty, on all fours, but 
now painfully sober, came creeping along 
the platform toward them. 

“ Launch a boat for Heaven’s sake,” he 
gasped ; “ the house and road are full of 
masked horsemen. They turned me out, — 

they turned Molly and the cook out with 
12 


i;8 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


me, and they are searching for you with 
shot-guns ! ” 

“ Is that Molly and Sarah in the boat- 
house ?” asked Sark under his breath. 
“ Wait ! Tell them to get into this boat. 
And, Reggie, you take care of them ; I’m 
going to see what this business really 
means.” 

He sprang silently to the little string- 
piece, traversed the wharf, and laid his hand 
on Molly’s plump arm. 

“ Get into the boat,” he said ; “ you’re 
not afraid, are you, Molly? ” 

“ Not very,” replied Molly, with quiver- 
ing lips, “ but I don’t like to see a thing in 
a white sheet looking through the kitchen 
window.” 

Most people would probably agree with 
Molly, and Sark himself felt an unpleasant 
sensation filtering through his anger. 

He guided Molly and Sarah to the boat, 
handed them safely and noiselessly in, then 
leaned down to whisper to Lanark : 


A STUDY IN WHITE 


179 


“ Paddle outside of a bulls-eye’s range 
and lie quietly on your oars. They won’t 
wait for daylight anyway, and I must get a 
glimpse of them.” 

“ Won’t you let me go with you, Jack ? ” 
urged Lanark. 

u No — I want to do some wriggling in 
Indian fashion — and you don’t know how. 
Ready ? Off you go ! Don’t splash ! ” 

The boat backed silently out into the 
darkness, and Sark turned and mounted the 
path that led through the bushes to the 
highway. 

There was little light ; the stars had en- 
tirely disappeared. He crept cautiously to 
the edge of the fringing alders, then dropped 
into the damp grass and wormed his way to 
the edge of the road. 

On the Spook Bridge stood a horseman, 
draped in white. 

For ten minutes Sark watched the motion- 
less, spectral figure, then, flattening himself 
out like a grass snake, he worked his way 


i8o THE CAMBRIC MASK 

up the road in the shadow of the alders 
until he came to the dry culvert that crossed 
the highway at the foot of his own garden. 
Into this he wriggled, then, crouching low, 
glided stealthily under the shelter of his 
own hedge and along the edge of the lawn 
toward a group of horsemen that waited 
before the open door of his own house. 

Even had it been light he could not have 
recognised either horses or riders, for man 
and beast were clothed and swathed in 
white. 

As he lay there watching them, three tall 
figures, hideous in their masks and shrouds, 
issued from the house and hastily mounted 
at the porch. Then the sweet bird note 
broke out close beside him with startling 
clearness, the sheeted horsemen wheeled, 
gathered, then drove by him at a gallop, 
sending the gravel in a stinging shower 
into his face. 

Fainter and fainter grew the dull stampede 
in the distance ; now it was gone — now he 


A STUDY IN WHITE 


1S1 

heard it again — now the whispering night 
breeze drowned the last soft echoes. 

He rose and walked soberly to his house. 
The light from a lamp streamed out upon 
the lawn, but the house was silent and de- 
serted, — deserted save for a gruesome thing 
that sat upright on the stairs, just below 
the first landing — the straw-stuffed effigy of 
a man with a bit of rope around his neck, 
and on his breast a paper pinned : 

“ This here is the second warning so git 
before the third warning is stuck onto your 
white liver with a nife. 

“ Capting, White Riders. 

“ K. O. T. B.” 

After Sark had tossed the sprawling effigy 
into the wood-house he went upstairs, 
pocketed a revolver, lighted a pipe, and 
came down again, curiously exhilarated, to 
go in search of his small household, now 
afloat in a chilly boat on Amber Lake. 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


182 

As lie crossed the Spook Bridge, a ragged 
creature in velveteens, whined at him from 
the roadside : “ Cross my palm, Romi, — 
cross my palm with silver in the name of 
her you love ! ” 

“ What’s the matter, are yon sick ? ” 
asked Sark.* Then he came nearer and 
peered into the man’s face : “ Oh, you’re a 
gipsy, eh ? Will a bit of silver loosen your 
tongue concerning some very recent visitors 
of mine ? ” 

The gipsy’s lean hand closed over the 
coin ; he stood up in the dusk and raised 
his ragged arm : 

“ Romi, you laugh at the Romany patter, 
but nevertheless signs are read, and signs 
shall be rhymed to the last day’s dawning — ” 

And he broke into a doggerel sing-song — 

“ They who gallop in robe and mask, 

Ask of the devil a devil’s task, 

Never the unborn moon shall see 
Sign of the white-robed company ! 

“Yet shall a rider ride hard with death, 

To save thy soul and thy body’s breath, 


A STUDY IN WHITE 


183 


And the hunted shall hunt, for death and life, 

And a mask and gown shall shroud a wife ! 

“ Read thy riddle ere day’s begun, 

One can answer, and only one ! 

Ivove of a rider in white thou’ll’t ask, 

And meet thy bride in a Cambric Mask ! ” 

“ Thanks very much,” said Sark, suspi- 
ciously, wondering where the fellow had 
heard of the mask he had found. But he 
turned away and walked on through the 
bushes to the landing. 


CHAPTER IX 


A STUDY IN PINK 

IN WHICH JOHN SARK AND ROSE EMBER 
STRODE THROUGH A CHAPTER AND RE- 
TURN TO FIND AN OPEN DOOR ON THE 
east PAGE. 

The remainder of the week passed peace- 
fully enough ; Sark rubbed up his three 
shot-guns and stood them in the rack at the 
foot of his bed ; he even sat up late for two 
nights, testing the catches on the heavy 
wooden shutters, prowling about the lawn 
and laurel hedge ; but nothing came to dis- 
turb house or occupants except a small owl 
that managed to fall down Mr. Batty’s 
chimney with a screech that raised the 
house and loosened most of the remaining 

hairs on Mr. Batty’s intellectual head. 

184 


A STUDY IN PINK 


i8 5 


As for Lanark he found the fishing better 
by day than by night, yet, strange to say, 
he never missed a single evening on the 
lake ; but whether it was to fish or to medi- 
tate nobody inquired. 

Molly Trig and black Sarah the cook be- 
haved admirably after the startling appari- 
tion of the White Riders. Sark told them 
quite plainly that he meant to fight if the 
masked marauders disturbed him again, but 
they refused to leave his service with such 
sturdy loyalty that he felt it incumbent on 
him to raise their wages on the spot. 

Rose Ember had arrived the morning 
after the White Riders’ raid, to find Sark 
calmly feeding violet leaves to the few re- 
maining Nitocris caterpillars which the 
bandit bird had spared him. 

He looked up at her inquiringly, for she 
had not come to breakfast with them all as 
usual, and he thought she appeared pale 
and troubled. 

“ You are not well,” he said ; “ you can- 


1 86 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

not stand the close application to study that 
I can. Don’t feel it necessary to stay with 
me if you need the fresh air outside.” 

A glow spread slowly over neck and face ; 
she did not answer but turned to the long 
rows of bell-glasses and mechanically began 
to lift each and examine the plant enclosed. 

“ My lawyer is here,” said Sark ; “ I 
think we have arranged for the investment 
of the funds. Mr. Lanark is out on the 
lake fishing, but he will explain to you at 
luncheon what we propose to do.” 

“ I don’t care to know,” murmured Rose ; 
“ I have absolute confidence in you.” 

The remark was commonplace enough, 
and it was strange that it should have sent 
a distinct thrill through Sark. 

She glanced up to meet his eyes, then 
lowered her head and carefully lifted a bell- 
glass under which several spine-covered 
larvae of Junonia ccenia were endeavouring 
to annihilate a helpless and tender bunch of 
narrow-leaved plantains. 


A STUDY IN PINK 


187 


“ You ought to know what your own 
lawyer is . doing,” said Sark, not knowing 
what else to say. 

“ I thought nobody ever knew what any 
lawyer was doing,” said Rose. 

“ Oh, Lanark isn’t that kind of lawyer,” 
said Sark, laughing. “ Besides you are 
sure to like him, — he’s one of those clean- 
cut, well-put-up, amiable fellows that every- 
body likes at first glance.” 

Sark might have been describing himself, 
so perfectly did his description of Lanark 
suit him ; and Rose glanced again through 
the great bell-glass at this pleasant-eyed 
young man who stood twirling his silver 
forceps and frowning slightly in the daz- 
zling yellow sunlight. 

“You will certainly fall in love with 
him,” he said. Now Sark had not meant to 
say that ; he didn’t know why he had said 
it, and the emptiness of the remark amazed 
and annoyed him. Besides, he had never 
been on any footing with Miss Ember that 


1 88 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


admitted of gallantry or even the most deli- 
cate badinage. 

From that moment, however, their rela- 
tions certainly underwent some subtle 
change, but whether through the chemistry 
of that vapid observation, or through the 
alchemy of Miss Ember’s reply, cannot be 
successfully argued here. 

What Miss Ember said was this : “ Do 
you believe I could so easily fall in love with 
anybody, Mr. Sark ? ” 

So she was not offended at his presump- 
tuous banter after all ! 

“ Are you immune ? ” asked Sark. 

“ Are you ? ” she replied in the manner 
of women ; and met his embarrassment with 
a daring little smile. 

He had been immune from love all his 
life ; he knew it and found in it a reason for 
pride. But pride is vanity and runs gaily 
among pitfalls, and a net is spread at noon- 
day for the young who mock at love. 

“ If I ever love a woman I fancy I shall 


A STUDY IN PINK 189 

know it,” lie said, abjectly begging tbe ques- 
tion ; at which Miss Ember smiled recklessly 
into his serious eyes and lifted another bell- 
glass. 

“ There are,” she said, “five caterpillars 
of the Astyanax feeding on this huckleberry 
shrub, and they’ve eaten half the leaves. I 
shall get my little trowel and dig up another 
on the Barrens.” 

She tied a clean pink apron around her 
waist, took down a pink flowered sunbonnet 
from a peg, and gravely put it on. 

Possibly the rosy goddess on Olympus 
wears a pink sunbonnet. But if she does 
not, the goddess Aphrodite has much to learn. 

Before Rose Ember sallied forth to pro- 
cure pabulum for the young and hungry 
Astyanax family, she did a thing that was 
not right, — nay it was downright and deli- 
cately devilish ; — she rolled up both sleeves 
to the shoulder. 

If she of Milo had arms, — but she hasn’t, 
— and it is also quite impossible to describe 


190 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


Rose Ember’s arms — those creamy exquisite 
rounded arms that seemed to exhale a fresh 
fragrance in the heavy air of the greenhouse. 

u I will go with you,” said Sark. 

“ I shall be only a moment — and you have 
so much to do ” 

“ No I, haven’t,” he muttered guiltily ; and 
they passed out of the greenhouse, side by 
side. 

It had rained that morning before daylight, 
and the sun had not yet dried the beaded 
drops on brake and fern and blueberry patch. 
And, as Rose walked, she held her skirts 
with a dainty discretion that kept them dry, 
and that neither revealed nor entirely con- 
cealed two distracting little buckled shoes. 

The demoralisation of man is an instruc- 
tive spectacle, yet not always necessary to in- 
culcate prudence into readers of romance ; 
and there is a certain pathos, too, in the 
disintegration of a healthy self-sufficiency, 
which need not be mercilessly dissected for 
the edification of a receptive public. 


A STUDY IN PINK 


191 

When Rose knelt down before a small but 
ambitious young huckleberry bush, Sark 
knelt too ; when Rose cautiously loosened 
the earth in a circle around the woody stem, 
Sark patiently removed it by handfuls ; and 
when Rose triumphantly drew the shrub 
from mother earth, Sark carefully wiped 
her rosy fingers with his pocket handker- 
chief. 

The labour had not been arduous, yet Rose 
breathed a sigh like one who contemplates 
the achievement of an Augean project. She 
was young and vigorous and her lungs were 
delightfully healthy ; — so was the sigh. 

“ Are you tired ?” asked Sark, tenderly, 
of this young embodiment of health. 

“ How perfectly absurd ! ” she said, but her 
voice was very sweet. 

Unconsciously they began to wander on to- 
gether, side by side, through the dewy moor- 
land where the fragile wild roses showered 
their knees with silken petals, and silvery 
wind-flowers marked a thousand pathways 


192 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


for them toward the rising sun ; where the 
shadow of the speckled duck-hawk swept 
the scrubby slopes, and startled plover 
sheered skyward, wheeling, darting in hys- 
terical flight, higher, higher, until they 
melted into the blinding blue. 

Silence is never absolute ; stillness is 
comparative ; it is melodious sometimes, 
sometimes fragrant. 

The silence of this fresh wild moorland 
was sweeter for the carolling of finches, 
deeper for the cackle of the purple grackle 
stalking with burnished plumage through 
the fern, musical when the bright-eyed 
musk-rat splashed in his reedy pool. 

Across their aimless path a sleek pine 
martin, red as a fox, stole cautiously, only 
to mount a lonely silver poplar, and bound 
and thrash among the slender bending 
branches. Once they started a hen-part- 
ridge, and the moss swarmed for a moment 
with scurrying chicks. Then the old bird, 
trailing the deceitful wing, charged straight 


A STUDY IN PINK 


193 


at Rose with such a bristle of plumage and 
such evil eyes, that the young incarnation 
of the goddess dropped her skirts and took 
Sark’s arm between both hands* 

“ I can never get used to that,” she said, 
in extenuation of her half panic. 

Sark did not answer ; he seemed still to 
feel that soft pressure on his arm. 

“ We must not wander too far,” she said, 
presently, looking back. 

Already the lake had disappeared behind 
the low hillocks ; around them on every 
side stretched the Barrens, streaked in the 
west by the dark fringes of an unknown 
wilderness. 

“ Let us sit down,” he said. 

“ But your work ? ” 

“ I don’t care,” he said, resentfully. 
Why did she persist in sending him back 
into an atmosphere of antiseptic solutions 
and stuffy hot-house odours ? 

“ Besides,” she said, “ the sun has ruined 

the roots of my little huckleberry bush.” 

*3 


i 9 4 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

“ Very well,” lie said, exasperated, u tlien 
we’ll go back if you insist.” 

But she bad already sat down. 

11 The little Astyanax children will be 
hungry,” she observed, looking at him from 
the depths of her pink sun-bonnet, with a 
curious sense of satisfaction. 

The Astyanax caterpillars were the first 
ever raised in captivity by any entomologist 
and had been to Sark as the apple of his 
eye. 

“ I dare say they’ll stand it until lun- 
cheon,” he replied carelessly ; but still the 
merciless maid goaded him. 

“ You left the greenhouse door open ; 
perhaps that bird thief may come in 
again ” 

u Heavens ! ” he said, “ can’t I take ten 
minutes, rest from those accursed caterpil- 
lars without reproach ! ” 

“ Of course,” she said meekly ; “ I only 
thought you cared more about your cater- 
pillars than you did for — for ” 


A STUDY IN PINK 


J 95 


She did not finish ; it was quite needless. 
The colour under his sunburn deepened, and, 
man-like, he fidgeted silently. 

A family of small weasels, who rented a 
a pile of rocks, near by, from a hoary old 
woodchuck and three black snakes, began 
to show off before Rose, turning, twisting, 
gliding, chasing each other in and out of 
cleft and hollow like sleek brown and white 
lizards. Presently, however, their landlord, 
the rusty old woodchuck, came out to sit on 
his haunches and contemplate that fatal 
shadow of his which had kept him under- 
ground through a perfectly normal spring- 
tide. 

“ He’s reflecting on wasted time and fool- 
ish proverbs,” said Rose. “ Put not your 
faith in prophets, Mr. Sark.” She drew a 
cambric handkerchief from her belt and 
touched her flushed face. 

“ What an ominous voice in the wilder- 
ness! ” said Sark, laughing. “ But I don’t 
put my faith in prophets, or in prophecies 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


of disaster either. Suppose I tell you what 
happened last night.” 

“ Suppose you do,” said Rose faintly. 
She had suddenly grown very pale, but her 
face was shadowed by the pink sunbonnet. 

So he told her about the White Riders, 
of their menacing placard, of the effigy. 
He did not affect to laugh or speak too 
lightly ; he told her that he meant trouble, 
that he would not tolerate that sort of thing, 
and that he had three shot-guns of io, 12-, 
and 16-bore, to welcome ceremoniously 
the White Riders on their next informal 
visit. 

She listened, head downcast, idle fingers 
tearing the purple petals from a late violet. 
She was so silent that he began to feel 
ashamed of his confidence ; he thought that, 
after all, the whole affair might be little 
more than a rough ill-natured practical joke, 
and that she probably considered his serious 
preparation unwarranted, if not slightly 
suggestive of timidity. 


A STUDY IN PINK 


197 


“ It may be a joke,” be said almost sulk- 
ily, “ and I may be a fool to notice it, but in 
the west we never hesitate to get the drop 
on people who wear masks. By the way, 
didn’t I give you that cambric mask I found 
under the laurel hedge ? ’’ 

“Yes,” said the girl in a low voice, play- 
ing nervously with her handkerchief. 

“ I wish you would bring it to me when 
you think of it,” he said ; “ there was more 
or less of a clue in that bit of cloth.” 

“ What clue ? ” she asked, turning 
quickly. 

“ Why the thing was made from a woman’s 
handkerchief — like yours, there ; and be- 
sides, the pasteboard backing came from one 
of those cardboard boxes that my antiseptic 
cotton is always packed in.” 

The girl sat perfectly still ; even her 
breathing seemed to cease. Sark was look- 
ing at the handkerchief in her lap, curiously, 
and presently he asked her for it. Perhaps 
she did not understand, perhaps she was too 


198 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

frightened to move. She suffered him to 
take the handkerchief from her unresisting 
fingers, and he examined it, and raised it to 
his face. 

“ Now isn’t that strange,” he said ; “ this 
handkerchief appears to be the mate to the 
one on the mask, and, by Jove, it’s faintly 
scented with the same odour. You didn’t 
take it from the mask, did you, Miss 
Ember?” 

She did not answer; he repeated the 
question, bending down to see her face, but 
she covered her eyes with both hands and 
leaned both elbows on her knees. 

“ For Heaven’s sake,” cried Sark, alarmed, 
“ don’t be distressed about a thing like that ! 
I didn’t care anything about that mask, and 
you were perfectly welcome to pull it to 
pieces ! ” 

But Rose was not to be consoled so easily ; 
the reaction unnerved her for a moment, and 
she wept with a quiet but healthy abandon 
that drove Sark nearly frantic. Under that 


A STUDY IN PINK 


199 


influence lie said some very pleading and 
tender things that sounded natural enough 
under the circumstances, but which, on 
thinking of them later, made him blush, all 
to himself, in his own room. Rose, too, 
remembered the things he said, and her fair 
face burned deliciously. 

But at that moment, seated there in the 
solitude of the Barrens, she felt that fate 
was playing tricks on her which she could 
not and would not endure, and she intended 
to inform her father to that effect. 

They walked back very soberly together. 
Sark uprooted another huckleberry shrub 
for his Nitocris brood, and Rose dug out 
another, penitently. 

“ It is very pleasant to walk with you,” 
said Sark, as they turned away toward the 
lake, now visible again across the moors. 

“ I have found it pleasant, too,” said 
Rose, tremulously. 

“ It must not be our last walk together,” 
said Sark, coming nearer. 


200 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


“ N-o,” said Rose, with the ghost of a sigh. 

“ You are tired ! ” exclaimed Sark, know- 
ing she was not, but seizing the opportunity 
to express sympathy and concern. This 
stock remark of lovers appears to lose none 
of its perennial freshness. It means, to- 
day, as much to youth and maid as when 
first propounded in sweet-scented Eden. 

“ No,” said Rose, gratefully, “ I am not 
one bit tired.” 

Sark, highly satisfied with himself and all 
the world, insisted on solicitude for the 
alleged fatigue of this big, healthy, glowing 
maid ; and, curiously enough, she did not 
find his anxiety as ridiculous as she might 
have had he not been John Sark. 

So they strolled over the spongy reindeer 
moss and bedded brake, giving a wide berth 
to the cranberry bog that quaked afar as 
they skirted it. The grey snipe scattered 
into flight as they passed, and faded from 
eyesight long before their petulant thin 
piping died out in the sky. 


A STUDY IN PINK 


201 


As they ascended the last incline, a man 
suddenly appeared on the crest, walking 
with heavy swinging strides across the 
stubble. It was Murden, and his square 
dark face grew sullen as he saw them ; 
but he greeted them both fairly enough, 
and took his pipe from his mouth in pass- 
ing. 

“ I suppose you’ve heard all about my 
ghostly guests last night,” said Sark ami- 
ably, returning his salute. 

“ Ay,” replied Murden, halting. 

“ Probably a joke,” said Sark, “ don’t you 
think so ? ” 

“ No, I don’t,” replied Murden, briefly. 

Sark hesitated, glancing keenly into the 
heavy countenance that met his squarely : 

a You think it means trouble ? ” 

“ The White Riders play rough jokes, I 
hear,” said Murden. 

“ Who are the White Riders ? ” 

“ Ay — who are they and who are they ? ” 
repeated Murden. “ You’ll have to join 


202 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


them to find out, I guess,” he added, shrug- 
ging his broad shoulders. 

“ Murden,” said Sark, “ do you suppose 
anything on earth can drive me out of a 
place I choose to stay in ? ” 

“ Do you take me for a White Rider?” 
sneered Murden. “ What do I care where 
you stay? ” 

“ You misunderstand me,” said Sark ; 
“ I only put it to you, as an independent 
man, that it will take more than a dozen bed 
sheets and pocket handerchiefs with holes 
cut in them to frighten me out of this county. 
I think it’s a rough practical joke, but if 
you don’t agree with me, I wish you’d come 
up to the house to-night and talk it over.” 

“ I can’t,” said Murden, with sarcastic 
politeness, “ I have an appointment to ride 
with Miss Ember this evening.” 

He turned on his heel and struck out into 
the Barrens, and Sark walked on beside 
Rose, biting his lip. 

Neither spoke until they reach the green- 


A STUDY IN PINK 


203 


house. Then Rose said suddenly : “ I 

never had the faintest idea of riding with 
anybody this evening. ” 

“ I supposed not,” replied Sark coldly. 
This hurt Rose, because she was still 
very, very young. And anyway, it was 
none of Sark’s business with whom she 
rode. She hated herself for the explana- 
tion ; it humiliated her. She marched up 
to the greenhouse and entered the open 
door. Then she reappeared, haughty, but 
still condescending to do her duty. 

“ Mr. Sark,” she said in chilling tones, 
“ there’s a bird in }^our greenhouse, and 
ten caterpillars of Colias Philodice are miss- 
ing.” 


CHAPTER X 


THE ULTIMATUM OF ROSE 

A DIGRESSION, A RETROGRESSION, AND A 
little PROGRESSION 

The end of the week was quite as peace- 
ful as the beginning. No horsemen draped 
in white came to trouble the midnight silence 
in Sark’s vicinity ; Lanark fished placidly 
all day, and pretended to fish most of the 
night. However, the twang of the banjo 
coming fitfully on the evening breeze from 
the lake told a very different story ; more- 
over, he never brought back any trout in 
the evenings. 

Mr. Batty avoided highly spiced food and 
drank a thin sour claret to subdue the flesh 
and the devil, bidding fair to drown the 

latter with his deep and earnest draughts. 

204 


THE ULTIMATUM OF ROSE 205 

He was therefore able to devote his time to 
a microscopic analysis of the second pair of 
legs belonging to an undetermined variety 
of that misleading and dimorphic butterfly, 
Papilio Turnus. There probably is nothing 
on earth as soothing and as moral as a study 
of dimorphism. Let the repentant viveur 
give up the gaiety of sackcloth and ashes 
and sit down to ponder upon melanism, 
albinism, and why the Disippus, which 
birds find palatable, mimics the Plexippus, 
which gives birds the stomach-ache. 

Sark wandered around among his hot- 
houses, doing little and thinking less. A 
lazy pleasure in living had taken the place 
of his feverish application to microscope and 
cabinet ; he lounged in the sunshine, watch- 
ing Rose busy with the great bell-jars ; and 
the golden moments fled like sands of gold 
pouring in a crystal time-glass. 

Rose appeared to be tranquil and con- 
tented with the new modus vivandi which 
permitted her to meet Sark’s serious moods 


20 6 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


with pretty raillery, or his bantering moods 
with a delicate coquetry that was more than 
enough to demoralise the whole calendar of 
saints. 

Across the lake, at the great wooden man- 
sions of Joshua Creed and Daniel Guernsey, 
house parties had already begun. What 
sort of people they might be, Sark could only 
conjecture, for all he saw of them was the 
carriage loads that passed his house from the 
station at the water-tower. Lanark said that 
they were a lot of rich vulgarians without 
shame or grandfathers, whose children’s 
children stood an excellent chance to lead 
New York society some day. 

But this was merely an Englishman’s 
acrid sneer, of course, because everybody 
knows New York society is a harmonious 
symphony of wit, birth, culture, and Olym- 
pian exclusiveness, to be compared only 
to that brilliant and delicate ensemble 
which composes the society of Washington, 
D. C. 


THE ULTIMATUM OF ROSE 207 

So the week ended peacefully, and the 
banjo of Miss Alida Guernsey played it out 
with a bucolic simplicity that presaged peace, 
goodwill, and a general lying down of lions 
and lambs. 

But this sort of thing couldn’t last. On 
Monday Sark found a third placard stuck on 
his door with a bowie knife, a paper filled 
with coarse insults and threats. On Tues- 
day six of his cattle were missing from their 
pasture on the Barrens ; and, on Wednesday 
night, one of his distant barns was burned 
to the ground. 

He had a long talk with Lanark over the 
situation, but they decided not to notify 
the sheriff of Mohawk County at present. 
However, before the week ended, that official 
had all he could attend to ; for disorder had 
become rampant in the county, the village 
journals were full of White-cap outrages 
and lawless raids. A man named Jim 
McMurray, living near Weazeltown, was 
whipped by a band of White Riders because 


208 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

he expressed his opinion about them too 
freely. In the outskirts of Heavy Falls a 
wretched negro was tarred and feathered be- 
cause he boasted that he could point out a 
dozen White-caps on the main street of the 
town any day in the week except Sunday, 
when they were all at church. 

The news of the burning of Sark’s barn 
excited the whole county. The various 
unions and brotherhoods of workingmen 
were charged with knowing too much about 
the White-caps and White Riders ; they 
replied through the daily papers, repudiating 
the charge. 

In the lawless quarry districts near Wea- 
zeltown, where disputes sometimes ended in 
shooting affrays, terror reigned ; men no 
longer took sides in plain outspoken com- 
ments, condemning or sympathising with 
Whitecaps and White Riders. Few among 
them, however, were sorry to see rich men 
harried. Rumours of Sark’s immense wealth 
began to circulate to his prejudice, and no- 


THE ULTIMATUM OF ROSE 209 

body took the trouble to inquire why be bad 
become obnoxious to tbe White Riders. 

On Friday evening, near tbe Weazeltown 
quarries, tbe sheriff made a vigorous and 
ungrammatical address in favour of law and 
order, and was bowled down openly by tbe 
denizens of that delightful hamlet. Neither 
sheriff nor game-wardens had ever been 
very popular in the neighbourhood. 

It is the single match that sets the forest 
on fire ; a spark of disorder finds plenty of 
tinder everywhere in this pleasant planet. 
So, from the first symptoms of lawlessness in 
the Amber Lake country, a general restless- 
ness spread throughout the region. Why 
Sark had been persecuted only Murden and 
Ember knew ; even Dagberg was in the dark, 
and he only followed his leaders because 
he understood that there was money to be 
divided when Sark was run out of the coun- 
try, although how and where that money 
was to be obtained he had not the faintest 

idea. As for the remainder of the White 
14 


210 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


Rider band, now revived after years of 
quiescence since the long quarry strikes of 
1890 had ended, they were in the saddle 
again partly for the excitement, partly to 
right some imaginary wrong done to Ember 
and Murden by Sark, partly because they 
were not unwilling to have mischief done to 
a rich man. 

But the rumour and then the certainty that 
the White Riders were abroad again acted 
like magic on the rest of the county. Rem- 
nants of old bands, organised during the 
long strike, drifted together and reorganised 
from sheer force of example. There were 
plenty of old scores to be wiped out, plenty 
of fancied abuses to rectify. And these 
abuses, personal or political, were easily reg- 
ulated by terrorism — more easily than by 
appeals to justice or process of law. 

Truly the spark of anarchy burns eternally 
in the breasts of the freest of people. 

Who and what were the White Riders ? 
Nobody seemed to know. As for Sark, if he 


THE ULTIMATUM OF ROSE 211 


suspected anybody, be beld bis peace and 
attended to bis own affairs with misleading 
earnestness. Lanark in particular did not 
tbink be appreciated tbe gravity of the situa- 
tion, and sent to New York for a magazine 
rifle which be bad formerly used to assassi- 
nate deer in Maine. 

Possibly Sark did not appreciate tbe act- 
ual danger in tbe situation. He was a boy 
when tbe Ku-Klux rode through tbe south, 
be was too young also to remember tbe 
Molly Maguires. During bis service with 
tbe cavalry in tbe west, he grew accustomed 
to tbe western view of tbe east as an effete 
conglomeration of tenderfeet, capitalists and 
fops, and tbe idea of the law-ridden state of 
New York furnishing material for bandits 
and desperadoes made him smile. 

No, it is quite certain that be did not ap- 
preciate tbe situation. But the possibility 
of outrage and lawless injustice bad aroused 
tbe obstinate in him ; bis blood tingled, not 
unpleasantly, at the vague prospect of a 


212 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


fight ; he sat for a whole afternoon twisting 
his crisp moustache and studying the various 
placards that had been nailed on his front 
door, striving for a possible clue to the writer. 

The figures in the designs interested him 
particularly ; he studied the drawings of the 
animals and insects minutely, racking his 
brains to think of any man he had ever heard 
of near Amber Lake who might have been 
the designer. 

On Saturday, less inclined for work than 
ever, he took his butterfly net and collect- 
ing-box and strolled out to the hill beyond 
his house, where Rose was kneeling, digging 
up plantains for some capricious caterpil- 
lars in the greenhouse. 

“How you do love to dig little holes, 
don’t you ? ” he said, with a bantering smile. 
“ I thought you were past the mud-pie 
age.” 

She sat up on the grass, flushed and 
breathless, pushing back her sunbonnet 
with her wrist. 


THE ULTIMATUM OF ROSE 


213 


“ A gallant man would dig his own plan- 
tains,” she said, sticking her trowel deep 
into the sod. 

“ Do you think I am ungallant? ” 

“ I think nothing about you.” 

This always discourages a man, even 
when he knows the remark to be untrue. 
He glanced at her plaintively and swung 
his butterfly net after a grasshopper which 
went clicking away in gauzy flight. 

u I, on the contrary, think a great deal — 
about you,” he said. 

“Thank you,” she murmured, with an 
adorably insolent upward glance. 

“ Why do you make me feel so silly ? ” 
he said sharply. 

At that she laughed outright and tossed 
the trowel into the air. It alighted on its 
blade and stuck quivering in the grass. 

“ You can’t help feeling silly of course, — 
all men realise their shortcomings at times,” 
she said. 

He pretended to be absorbed in the land- 


214 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


scape, and puffed his cigar with an affected 
and far-away expression that delighted her. 

“ I am very busy,” she said, “ you must 
not stay here to interrupt me.” Her shoe- 
buckle needed tightening ; she adjusted it 
with an innocent unconsciousness that fas- 
cinated him. 

“ Is it true,” he asked, “ that old Guernsey 
has invited you to attend his sggj||led 
Venetian fete on the lake? ” 

“ It is quite true,” she replied calmly ; 
“ who told you ? ” 

“ Lanark said you had been invited.” 

“ How did Mr. Lanark know ? ” 

Sark shrewdly suspected that Alida 
Guernsey had told Mr. Lanark during one 
of their nocturnal voyages, but he only said : 
“Lanark is invited too. Are you going?” 

“ No,” said Rose scornfully. 

“ It will be very gorgeous, they say,” 
continued Sark ; “ they are going to have a 
company of light opera singers up from New 
York to give an entertainment on an illurni- 


THE ULTIMATUM OF ROSE 215 

nated float ; then there will be music and fire- 
works and dancing, and everything a pretty 
girl could wish.” 

But Rose looked up at him very seri- 
ously : “ They are ignorant and unpleasant 
people,” she said ; “ they have made them- 
selves offensive to me. Why do you suggest 
my going ? Do you think I could find 
pleasure among such folk? ” 

A pink spot of anger appeared in each 
cheek ; she drove the trowel deep into the 
grass and rested her white hand on the 
handle. 

“ That creature, Guernsey, after he had 
flung an insult at my father, came and 
asked me to marry him ! That other one, 
Joshua Creed, came an hour later for the 
same purpose ! Is it not shameful ? ” 

Sark listened in an amazement that left 
no room for anger. 

“ You don’t mean old Joshua Creed — and 
that great red-faced creature Guernsey! ” he 
repeated, unable to credit his senses. 


2l6 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


“ Yes, I do ! Do you know why they 
came ? For my money ! Yes — I knew it 
as soon as they spoke. Think of it ! And 
that miserable old man, Joshua Creed, 
whined and begged that if I would not 
marry him I would permit his unspeakable 
son to pay his addresses to me — that mean- 
eyed young yokel who was to marry old 
Guernsey’s pretty niece — poor little thing ! ” 
“Samuel Creed?” said Sark incredu- 
lously. 

“ Yes, Samuel Creed. And his father 
actually flung decency to the winds and 
begged me not to throw away a fortune, 
when I could unite it with his, or with 
Samuel’s when he was dead ! ” 

“ Have these people come more than 
once ? ” asked Sark slowly. 

“ More than once ! ” she repeated with a 
little laugh ; “ they come every evening ; 
they drive me to my room ! ” 

“ Does your father permit this ? ” said 
Sark with tightening lips. 


THE ULTIMATUM OF ROSE 217 

She was silent. Who but she should 
know how little the word “ father ” meant 
to her, how little it signified protection. 

Ember had been offered a heavy bribe by 
Guernsey, and a lighter one by Creed, to 
use his influence with Rose. And the 
wretched man, already mistrusting Murden, 
already despairing of routing Sark out of the 
country, was playing both Murden and his 
daughter false for the sake of the money 
offered by Guernsey. He was playing a 
treacherous and complicated game ; he had 
many irons in the fire ; and if Murden failed 
to win Rose, there were Creed and Guernsey 
with a promise of money and an offer of 
permanent shelter for this weak dabbler in 
crime. But in any case Sark was to be 
eliminated, for Sark stood between Rose 
and any offer from Creed, or Guernsey, or 
Murden. Therefore he rode with the White 
Riders also, ready for anything short of 
murder — and perhaps nearly ready for that 
too. 


218 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


Rose knew this ; she knew also that when 
Murden had come the night she refused to 
ride with him, he came to woo her also, — 
and, the worst of it was that though he came 
for her money, he would also have come if 
she had not possessed one penny in the 
world. 

With the others it was easy to deal ; with 
Murden it was hard indeed, for the fury of 
the man, when she refused him, had been 
succeeded by a smiling tranquillity which 
masks the face of certain natures bent on 
murder. She had told Sark to beware of 
this man ; but that was all she could say 
without betraying her father’s connection 
with the White Riders. 

So she told Sark of Murden’ s suit, and of 
her refusal, and she said she feared Murden, 
not for herself but for others. And Sark 
understood. 

“ Miss Ember,” said Sark, at length, “ I 
did not intend to speak flippantly about the 
invitation to Guernsey’s ; I had not the 


THE ULTIMATUM OF ROSE 219 

remotest idea that you had been subjected 
to such gross persecution. I do not know 
whether I have a right to suggest that your 
father ” 

“You have no right ! ” flashed out Rose, 
flushing up ; “ criticism of me or of my 
father is not your privilege ! ” 

She had not intended to speak that way, 
but it was done, and the words were beyond 
recall. Sark bowed ; the colour stung his 
neck and ears ; he turned away across the 
Barrens, head a trifle higher than usual. 
And Rose watched him out of sight with the 
tears trembling on her quivering lashes. 

When he had disappeared, she flung the 
plantain leaves on the grass, stood up, and 
walked silently and swiftly across the moor- 
land to her own house. 

Her father was on the porch, vacant 
eyes dreaming, a soiled newspaper on his 
knees. 

“ Come into the house,” she said firmly, 
“ I wish to say something to you.” And he, 


220 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


with the instinct of all weak men whose first 
impulse is to obey a command, rose and fol- 
lowed her into the sitting-room. 

“ Father,” she said breathlessly ; “ I can- 
not endure this much longer. If you do not 
leave Mr. Sark alone I will end everything 
in a way you won’t like. No — I am not go- 
ing to betray your White Riders or denounce 
them, because that would mean prison for 
you. Whatever you have been toward me I 
can’t help feeling something for you that I 
suppose is love — or might have been. Any- 
way it is there — and I would very gladly 
give my own life to save yours — whatever 
the reason is that prompts me to feel so.” 

“ What the hell are you talking about ! ” 
snarled Ember, roused out of his lethargy. 

u I : *m talking about Mr. Sark. I warn you 
to leave him in peace.” 

“ You do, eh ? ” cried Ember ; “ and what 
will happen if I don’t? ” 

“ I’ll marry him,” replied the girl coolly. 
Then Ember fell into one of his impotent 


THE ULTIMATUM OF ROSE 221 


rages that left him white and exhausted at 
the end ; and Rose hid her pale face in her 
hands until it was over and her father had 
begun his feverish attack on a bottle of raw 
brandy. 

“ I can’t help it,” said Rose ; “ I will marry 
him if I have to ask him to take me. I see 
no other way ; I have offered you my money 
when I am of age ; I have refused Murden ; 
I have warned you to turn those miserable 
creatures Guernsey and Creed out of the 
house before I left it and you forever. Now 
you are trying to drive a man out of the 
country who has never in all his life ad- 
dressed one word of love to me, — who cares 
nothing for my money, — nor for me, per- 
haps. And you and your company of high- 
waymen burn his barn, steal his cattle, in- 
sult him with threats — and how do I know 
that one of you — perhaps Murden may not 
kill him?” 

But Ember was too far spent with his rage 
and fury to reply ; and presently she turned 


222 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

and left tlie room where the creature she 
called father panted and mouthed and trem- 
bled over his bottle of raw spirits. For the 
man was going downhill at a fearful rate ; a 
single month had wrecked this ruined being 
so utterly that even Murden considered him 
scarcely good for another month, and laid 
the lash on the more heavily to extract all 
that was left of his remaining strength. 


CHAPTER XI 


OLD COMRADES 

IN WHICH MR. BATTY IS UNEXPECTEDLY DE- 
LIGHTED AND JOHN SARK MAKES A COM- 
FORTING DISCOVERY. 

When Sark left Rose Ember alone on 
the hill with her little trowel, her plantains, 
and her eyes full of tears, he walked away in 
that unpleasant frame of mind peculiar to the 
misunderstood. 

It was quite true that he had no business 

to interfere in Miss Ember’s affairs; still 

less graceful was his blunder in the implied 

criticism on her father — a remark that she 

had very properly cut short with a snub. 

The coarse attentions of Guernsey and 

Creed had angered him, — not because he 

feared for his own suit, — but the defenceless 

situation of a girl with a weak-minded, sordid 
223 


224 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


rascal for a father made the importunities of 
the two grasping vulgarians distressing if 
not intolerable to him. 

Gradually, however, as he walked, the 
chagrin from the snub* administered by 
Rose lost its sting and became merged in 
a deeper feeling which he could no longer 
doubt possessed him. 

“ Nevertheless,” he thought, “ I can’t 
make love to her yet ; all these creatures have 
been haunting her ever since she became 
an heiress, and I can’t speak now ; it isn’t 
decent.” 

He walked on, switching the bnshes 
with the bamboo staff of his butterfly net. 
He would not believe it of her, but sup- 
pose Rose, who was young and impression- 
able, should mistake his motives. Sup- 
pose evil tongues should wag and hint 
that John Sark had never cared for her 
through the years when she was dependent 
on him for her daily bread, but that he had 
waked up quickly enough to the beauty of 


OLD COMRADES. 


225 


a young girl with half a million in her own 
name. 

“Idiots,” he thought wrathfully; “as 
though I’d condescend to marry for all the 
money in New York State ! ” 

He had come to the high-road by this 
time. The prospect was not very inviting 
for him to continue an aimless walk on that 
scorching dusty thoroughfare; and, as he 
did not know exactly what to do with him- 
self, he sat down on the bank above the 
road and lighted a pipe. 

The wind played pranks with the dust 
in the road below ; tiny whirlwinds, pigmy 
siroccos, sand-storms in miniature raged 
with a fury which perhaps terrified the 
caravan of small red ants that had been 
voyaging all day long across the highway 
for some purpose only known to themselves 
and Sir John Lubbock. 

Sark watched them streaming across the 
stony bank, penetrating the sparse grass- 

belt, then descending to the dry ditch that 
J 5 


226 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


bordered the bank, to emerge again into the 
dusty desert of the road. 

He had been sitting there for ten minutes, 
perhaps, when the sound of wheels aroused 
him. 

A conveyance from Heavy Falls was ap- 
proaching, — a species of tramp stage which 
went anywhere for anybody, on payment 
of fare, creaking about from village to vil- 
lage, dried mud on shaft and axle, truly a 
shabby, uncertain, and unlovely craft for 
the highways of the Empire State. 

There was a single passenger in it, a very 
bright-eyed young lady in mourning. The 
mourning was trim and approached danger- 
ously close to coquettishness, — so close that 
Sark looked at her again, which is a way 
men have, even the least susceptible, and, 
alas, even those who are most in love with 
another woman. 

“ I reckon,” said the driver, pulling up 
opposite Sark, “ that you air Mister John 
Sark. Be ye?” 


OLD COMRADES. 


227 


“ I fancy I am,” returned Sark, rising and 
lifting his cap to the bright-eyed young lady 
in mourning. 

“ I beg your pardon,” she said anxiously, 
“ but I am on my way from Heavy Falls to 
the water-tower station to catch the express 
train for New York. Now my driver tells 
me that his horse can’t make the journey 
in less than two days — and I’m sure I don’t 
know what to do — because he tells me there 
are no hotels here.” 

“ It’s thirty mile to the water-tower,” said 
the driver doggedly ; “ I didn’t cal’late fur 
to drive no furder ’n Amber Lake.” 

“ But why did you not tell me that there 
was no hotel here ? ” she said indignantly. 

“ It ain’t my business to supply superfloos 
infurmation to city ladies,” said the driver 
placidly, but not with intentional disre- 
spect. 

Then Sark did the only thing that he 
could do under the circumstances ; he 
invited the lady to rest at his house until 


228 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


he could get his man to harness a team and 
take her to the water-tower. 

She demurred of course, — but with a 
smile, and in due time she graciously in- 
clined her ear. 

Sark entered the staggering vehicle, bid- 
ding the driver direct his horses toward 
the house on the hill ; and, in a few mo- 
ments the tramp stage deposited them on 
the porch, to the agitation of Mr. Batty, who 
was looking out of an upper window. 

“ Why, that’s Mr. Batty ! ” cried the new- 
comer looking up at the savant. 

Mr. Batty disappeared and the next mo- 
ment came prancing down the stairs and 
out on the porch. 

Their greeting was unaffected, cordial, 
and amusing ; he called her Mrs. Warne, 
then stared at her mourning while she bent 
her head and murmured that her widow- 
hood was already the affliction of several 
years. 

Meanwhile the driver of the tramp stage 


OLD COMRADES. 


229 


had plumped Mrs. Warne’s luggage down 
on the piazza and had remounted his ve- 
hicle. He would have driven away without 
taking further notice of anybody, had not 
his dull yokel’s eye discovered Molly Trigg, 
in cap and apron, standing demurely in the 
doorway. And what a foolish grin he 
grinned while Sark whispered a few instruc- 
tions to the abstracted maid, and signalled 
Mr. Batty to present him in decent form to 
the lovely Mrs. Warne ! 

“ I was Mrs. Warne’s professor at the 
institute,” said Mr. Batty ; “it is most de- 
lightful — most unexpected and entirely de- 
lightful, Sark, — in point of fact you can 
form no adequate notion of how delightful 
it is.” 

Mrs. Warne coloured prettily and dropped 
him a courtesy. 

“ Yes, I can,” said Sark laughing ; “ and 
I am going to entreat Mrs. Warne to remain 
here to-night, not only because it would be 
an honour if she would accept our hospitality, 


230 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


but also because my man lias taken the 
team to the water-tower and could not pos- 
sibly return until after midnight.” 

There was no earthly use in demurring 
this time ; Mrs. Warne saw that at once. 
She couldn’t get out of Amber Lake that day, 
and she accepted the inevitable so charmingly 
that Sark decided not to let her go on the 
morrow either, if he could possibly avoid it. 

Molly presently reappeared to conduct 
Mrs. Warne to a guest chamber and place 
herself at her service. She took leave for 
the moment of Sark and Mr. Batty without 
embarrassment, and entered the house, dis- 
creetly conducted by Molly. 

“ I fancy,” said Sark, “ that you can 
manage to amuse Mrs. Warne this afternoon, 
can’t you, Batty ? ” 

“ Are you starting out collecting ? ” asked 
Mr. Batty in confusion ; “ you know how 
ladies agitate me, Sark ; — must you go? ’’ 

“ Yes, — I might as well,” said Sark. “ I’m 
rigged for it, you see.” 


OLD COMRADES. 


231 


Mr. Batty beamed on him. 

“ Positively,” he said, “ I was never so 
surprised and delighted in all my life, Sark, 
never in my entire existence.” 

“ I do not doubt it,” said Sark gravely ; 
“ my compliments, if you please, to Mrs. 
Wame, and I place the house, grounds, and 
you at her absolute and unqualified disposal. 
I’ll be back to dinner, of course.” 

“ Ah,” observed Mr. Batty with a retros- 
pective smile which showed he was not listen- 
ing. So Sark lighted his pipe again and 
turned on his heel. 

Swinging on down the road, net over his 
broad shoulders, he soon overtook the tramp 
stage descending the hill by the Spook 
Bridge. 

“ Are you going back to Heavy Falls? ” 
asked Sark, as he came up alongside of 
the dilapidated conveyance and seized the 
flap. 

“ I reckon,” replied the driver looking at 
his horses’ ears. 


232 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


“ I think I’ll get in and drive with you,” 
said Sark, suiting the action to the word. 

“ It’s a dollar,” observed the yokel, un- 
moved. 

“A dollar to Heavy Falls ? ” 

“ Yep.” 

“ But I’m not going as far as that.” 

“ Oh, be you goin’ to Weazeltown ? ” 

A sudden idea struck Sark and he nodded : 

“Yes, I’ll drive to Weazeltown with you 
and walk back.” 

“ Three shillin’s,” replied the youth, 
flicking a horsefly from the limp traces. 

After Sark had paid his fare, the yokel 
relaxed, and ultimately became expansive 
and confidential. 

“ That’s a slick gal of yourn, I guess,” he 
observed ; “ hain’t she jest elegant, now, in 
that pink dress an’ white apron an’ cap ! oh 
my ! ” 

“ Who? Molly? You’d better wake up 
from that pipe-dream,” said Sark sharply. 

“ Is that her name ? ” asked the youth. 


OLD COMRADES. 


233 


He subsided into silence, but Sark saw bis 
beardless moutb working out tbe word, 
“ Molly,” as though the bucolic smack of 
the name tasted good to love’s untutored 
lips. 

The stage had now entered that sand belt 
which lies along the edge of the pines to 
the north of the lake’s outlet. 

The sun’s fierce rays set the horses’ flanks 
in a lather, and presently they dropped 
into a walk. Slowly the weather-beaten 
wheels turned, crunching through the sand ; 
the battered chariot reeked with the heat ; 
every leather flap and cushion exhaled a 
musty odour of horse-hair, flaking varnish, 
and the peculiar rank scent of ancient lap- 
robes ; but the heavy perfume from the 
pines predominated. 

Sark leaned back in his seat, smoking, 
abstracted eyes following the dark shadows 
of stage and horses gliding alongside across 
the sand, until they came to the highway 
again where the dust whitened the roadside 


234 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


bushes, and swift-winged butterflies darted 
up under the horse’s feet. 

Twice he stopped the stage to descend 
and investigate the clouds of butterflies that 
had accepted an invitation to a permanent 
luncheon among the thistles in the gully. 
The great shiny milk-weed stalks hung 
heavy with pink clusters too sweet for any- 
thing but butterflies and bees, and these he 
also inspected, securing three or four speci- 
mens of the prolific and endless Argynnis 
tribe. But he found nothing new among 
them. 

The yokel, who drove, stopped obediently 
whenever Sark requested ; he observed 
Sark’s pursuit and capture of butterflies 
with a tolerant stoicism, characteristic of the 
natives of the North Atlantic States, who 
spend their entire lives attempting to con- 
ceal their suspicions of the city-bred. 

To the inmates of Mohawk county, Sark 
was a harmless monomaniac to be treated 
with a certain consideration. Once, in- 


OLD COMRADES 


235 


deed, the farmers had got it into their 
heads that Sark was a new sort of philan- 
thropist, dedicating his life to relieving 
vegetables and fruit trees of gipsy-moth, 
canker, chinch-bug, potato-beetle, and army- 
worm. Joyfully the population of the en- 
tire county had hastened to solicit his 
services for their individual cabbages and 
potatoes ; but when he presented to each 
applicant nothing but a government pamphlet 
concerning insects injurious to vegetation, 
they retired, puzzled, disgusted, suspicious, 
and uncertain. Some believed that he col- 
lected butterflies as bait for fishing, some 
argued that he sold them “ daown tu York ” 
for weird and occult purposes, and probably 
at an immense profit ; many asserted that 
he ate his specimens, others that “city 
women ” wore them in their bonnets. How- 
ever, all Mohawk county agreed on one 
thing, which was that Sark appeared to be 
utterly irresponsible to God, man, and the 
constitution of the United States. 


236 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

While the dusty horses were drinking at 
a wooden trough brimming with sweet 
spring-water, Sark added a dozen or so ex- 
quisite violet-coloured butterflies to his list 
of captures, among them four splendid and 
perfect specimens of that rare boreal butter- 
fly, Lycaena Couperi, an insect he had 
never believed could be found south of New- 
foundland. 

The capture of these specimens stirred 
the latent enthusiasm in him ; he paid the 
yokel for his drive, gave him a cigar, and 
bade him depart in peace. 

“ But ain’t you a-goin’ to Weazeltown ? ” 
demand the driver. 

“ No, I’m going to hunt around the woods 
here for things.” 

“ Critters ? ” 

“ Yes — all sorts.” 

“ I guess,” observed the yokel, “ that Cy 
Pettengill, up to Weazeltown, can tell you 
a darned sight more about critters than you 
ever ketched in your fish-net. He seen 


OLD COMRADES 237 

some with wings, all kind ’er striped yaller 
an’ speckled ” 

“ When ? ” demanded Sark, interested. 

“ When he had the snakes ! ” roared the 
yokel, bursting into guffaws of laughter at 
his own exquisite humour : “ so long, mis- 
ter, — and, say — drink Mohawk Moonshine 
if yew want ter git the latest p’ints on 
things that flop an’ hop ! ” 

With this sarcastic but not unfriendly 
sally, the yokel sponged off his horses, 
climbed to the seat, bawled “ wo — hush ! wo 
— wo hush ! ” and the tottering stage 
swayed into motion. Long after the creak- 
ing of shaft and axle had died away, Sark 
could hear the distant bursts of loutish 
mirth, tuneless and vacant, until the inces- 
sant cawing of a crow overhead drowned it 
in his ears. 

The road where he stood was flanked on 
either hand by woods. In the heated still- 
ness the metallic notes of wakeful crickets 
pulsated through the grasses ; long drawn 


238 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

monotones of cicadas intensified the silence 
and the heat ; a soft rushing sound, now 
waning, now growing fresher and nearer, 
came to him at moments ; perhaps the still 
breeze in the trees, perhaps the distant noise 
of water flowing over gravel. 

There is a breathless sense of expectancy 
in the air when the dim woods scarcely stir, 
when the sun spots sleep on the dappled 
beech, and a single leaf, where motionless a 
million hang, quivers alone, responsive to 
an unfelt wind. 

Then there are degrees of silence, the 
strange sensation of slumbering green 
things, the unheard flow of the sap, mount- 
ing ceaselessly ; the still creeping of tiny 
efts, the noiseless unfolding of blossoms, 
the soundless fall of the wind-flower’s petals, 
settling on golden moss. 

This is the silence of the woods in June, 
— this composite quiet, troubled with per- 
fume stealing from every pore of earth. 
They that transpose it into the harmony of 


OLD COMRADES 


239 

waking life make no discords ; the chirr of 
the squirrel, the dry croak of a preening 
crow, the velvet patter of rabbits, the whirr 
of the humming bird, the thunderous double 
beating of the partridge, all are but con- 
cords in the degrees of woodland quiet, — a 
quiet that is an endless changing symphony 
of heard and unheard sound. 

And into this paradise of silence passed 
John Sark. The leaves of a vanished sum- 
mer murmured as his firm heel pressed 
them, the moss slowly effaced the imprint 
of his foot, the crimson flower of yesterday 
lay down in its ring of fallen petals as 
his knees waded through the mint-scented 
thickets of bergamot. 

He was approaching the further edge of 
the woods now. 

Already he could see the scarred slopes of 
the Sagamore Hills, scarcely a mile away, 
and, nearer, the weather-stained hamlet that 
fringed the village of Weazeltown. 

A field of clover lay between him and 


240 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


the nearest cabin ; he skirted it with due 
regard for the owner’s prejudices, climbed 
a barbed-wire fence very gingerly, and was 
rewarded by finding a cattle-path which led 
him to the back door of the cabin he intended 
to visit. 

There was nobody in the house except a 
sunburnt, sullen-faced young man who re- 
garded him without favour as he entered the 
single carpetless room. 

“ Good-day,” said Sark, pleasantly, “ are 
you James McMurray ? ” 

“ Yes,” said the young fellow, “ but I 
won’t talk, so you needn’t waste your breath 
nor my time.” 

Sark, not in the least abashed, sat down 
on a shaky chair, uninvited, and began to 
prepare his pipe for smoking. 

The young man, McMurray, eyed him 
sulkily until the pipe was lighted, then he 
started to leave the shanty but Sark called 
him back sharply. 

“ I tell you I won’t talk,” said McMurray ; 


OLD COMRADES 


241 


“ I guess I’ve had enough trouble without 
huntin’ more. The sheriff he came to 
pump me, Squire Stringer he comes every 
day, and I guess I won’t blab to a damn 
detective if I shut up to the sheriff.” 

“ Oh,” said Sark good-humouredly, “ you 
take me for a detective ? Why, McMurray, 
I thought you would remember me.” 

“Remember you?” The young man 
glanced at him derisively, then shrugged 
his shoulders and added : “ I don’t know you 
and I wouldn’t talk if I did.” 

“ Oh, yes, you would,” said Sark, “ if you 

were ever trumpeter in N troop ” 

The man whirled about in a flash and 
stared at Sark. 

“ — In N troop, 7th Cavalry, Captain 

Ross, — first lieutenant Sark ” 

Then a strange thing happened; Mc- 
Murray dropped on to a stool beside the pine 
table and hid his head in his arms. The 
man was weeping ; Sark quietly slipped 

out of the house and began to pace the arid 
16 


242 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

garden, Hands clasped behind his back, head 
bent. He knew his man. 

After a while McMurray appeared at the 
back door, an old slouch hat pulled low 
over his reddened eyes, a clay pipe between 
his teeth. Without a word or gesture Sark 
turned and retraced his path toward the 
woods, steering clear of the clover, recross- 
ing the barbed wire, and finally entering 
the woods again exactly where he had left 
the shadow of the trees. 

There was a clump of hemlock near by 
whose boughs swept the brown earth. 
Between these Sark ducked and threaded his 
way, followed by McMurray, until the two 
men stood face to face under a cool, thick 
tent of green. 

“ Now my man,” said Sark, cheerfully, 
“ speak out as though the band was playing 
Garry owen ! ” 

Instinctively McMurray’s hand sought his 
hat brim ; he straightened up, pipe deferen- 
tially lowered, tear-marred eyes fixed on Sark, 


OLD COMRADES 


243 


“ I didn’t know you, lootenant, — I wouldn’t 
have spoken back at you — but I’ve had hard 
luck, and the White-caps left me for dead, 
and now I’ve lost the quarry job.” 

He cleared his throat and struck the 
palm of one hand with a sunburnt fist : 

“ I didn’t suspicion that this Mr. Sark 
they were harryin’ over to Amber Lake 
might be you, sir ; but the name was re- 
spected in the regiment and it sorter riled 
me when I heard the White Riders was 
burning barns that belonged to one of your 
name. That’s what made me speak out the 
way I did at the quarry. Yes, sir, I told 
anybody who cared to listen that I had no 
use for White-caps.” 

He paused, looked at his pipe, and finally 
added : “I guess I was a fool.” 

“ Did they hurt you badly ? ” asked Sark. 

“Not very ; the doctor at the quarry he 
fixed me, sir, after I come to.” 

Sark seated himself, but McMurray did 
not follow his example until invited. 


244 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


“ When did you leave the regiment ? ” 
asked Sark. 

“ Last November, sir.” 

“ And you were doing well at the quarry? ” 
“ Not very well, sir. I wish I was back at 
the old stand ; I’m that lonesome sometimes.” 
“ Is that your shanty ? ” 

“ Yes, sir.” 

“ Anything in it ? ” 

“ No, sir, except what you seen.” 

“ No money or papers or valuables ? ” 

“ Oh, no, sir,” replied McMurray simply. 
“ I ain’t got none except this here honour- 
able discharge in my vest pocket.” 

“ Very well,” said Sark; “ I want you to 
come with me and run my stables fora while. 
I’ve a year yet at Amber Lake, and perhaps 
after that you and I may find ourselves back 
in the old regiment. What do you say ? ” 

“ I say thank you, sir,” replied McMurray 
quietly, “ and it will be a honour and a 
pleasure for me to be at your orders again, 
sir.” 


OLD COMRADES 


245 


“ And it will be a pleasure for me too,” 
said Sarkheartily ; “ besides, you can use a 
rifle better than my friend Mr. Batty, and I 
fancy there may be a little shooting around 
the house before these White Riders have 
had enough.” 

“ Did you see by the papers I was hurt, 
sir?” asked McMurray, setting his white 
teeth. 

“ Yes, but — I didn’t think it was our old 
trumpter in N. I never imagined whom I 
was destined to find in that shanty. The 
truth is I intended to question you concern- 
ing your experience, and then draw my 
own conclusions about this White Rider 
business. I’m glad I came, McMurray,” he 
ended emphatically. 

“ So am I, sir,” said the trumpeter, “ for 
it’s God’s truth you’ve saved me from 
murder, for I meant to kill one of them 
white-sheeted devils before I quitted Wea- 
zeltown ! ” 

With a gesture of rage he tore his flimsy, 


246 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


sweat-soaked skirt open to tke waist. His 
body was all scarred and discoloured by tke 
rawkides. 

Sark red to tke temples examined tke 
marks. 

“ Tke disgrace ! ” muttered McMurray 
tkrougli kis set teetk “ tliat’s wkat’s killin’ 
me, sir.” 

Witli a sudden movement Sark straigkt- 
ened up and keld out kis kand : 

“ Your officer could never take tke kand 
of a disgraced man,” ke said pleasantly ; 
“ tkere, — tke grip is comforting to me too. 
Button your skirt, man ; I want no better 
comrade at my side tkan Jim McMurray — in 
tke army or out of it ! ” 

He turned and started komeward, tkrougk 
tke darkening woodland, passing witk ligkt 
free steps across tke fragrant moss. And 
after kim strode James McMurray, late 
trumpeter in N troop, worskipping tke very 
ground wkere Sark kad passed. 


CHAPTER XII 

AFTERGLOW 

CONCERNING THE DEMORALIZATION OF 
A SAVANT AND HIS REHABILITATION 
THROUGH HEAVEN AND A MOSQUITO. 

In the meanwhile Mr. Batty had retired 
to his chaste chamber in the fixed and 
unshakable purpose of adorning himself 
with raiment of fine linen. A white 
duck suit, fragrant and fresh, was at 
his disposal ; he emerged from the bath 
and regarded it with fond and astigmatic 
eyes. 

The question of neckwear bothered him ; 

in deference to Mrs. Warne he rejected tie 

after tie of many colours, until a silken scarf 

of pale heliotrope fascinated him. This 

delicate recognition of Mrs. Warne’s afilic- 

247 


248 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

tion filled him with innocent pride in his 
own discernment ; he crowned his shin- 
ing head with a frisky little straw hat, 
readjusted his round spectacles, and fairly 
skipped down-stairs to the porch where Mrs. 
Warne was slowly pacing, gowned in some 
thin black stuff that gave her lovely arms 
and neck their proper value. 

She was certainly expecting him, for she 
pretended that wide-eyed, unlimited surprise 
peculiar to the inexperienced. It settled Mr. 
Batty. 

“ Sark’s gone off after butterflies,” he said, 
“ and I am delighted — that is to say I am 
going to take you for a row on the lake, — if 
you don’t mind ” 

“ It is so warm in the sun,” she pleaded, 
looking straight into his eyes. 

“ Yes, but you have a sunshade in your 
hand ” 

“ The wind might tip us over — I should 
never dare to go.” 

“ Positively I assure you, Mrs. Warne ” 


AFTERGLOW 


249 


“ I never could venture out on that very 
large deep lake.” 

“ But if I fancied for one moment you 
would be in danger ” 

“ No, no, I am such a coward about boats. 
But if it is going to disappoint you, Mr. 
Batty ” 

So they went down to the lake together 
and Mr. Batty found a dry boat, unclogged 
with weed, and he seated Mrs. Warne in the 
stern. 

The water was dancing with white sun- 
spots, the blue sky was cloudless, the 
speckled trout shot up above the surface, 
black against the glare, and fell back with- 
out a sound. In the sedge the snipe were 
calling to each other in long sweet double 
crescendo ; the great pad-frogs floated, half 
immersed, along the shore like green gob- 
lins, watching them with changeless eyes ; a 
filthy little heron, gorged with fish, flapped 
up from the reeds and wheeled away heavily 
in slow measured flight across the water. 


250 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

The outlet to Amber Lake is a dark and 
narrow stream, flowing silently under thickly 
leaved branches which interlace high over- 
head. Here the great belted kingfisher 
amuses its big-mouthed young with endless 
performances on the rattle ; here the lady 
mink teaches her little ones to slide into the 
water without splashing, and to play tag 
with the startled trout ; here the gorgeous 
wood-duck builds in the hollow tree, and 
takes her young to the water as Jupiter bore 
Ganymede. 

“ It seems very lonely and dark in here,” 
said Mrs. Warne, looking into the forest 
from the boat with concealed satisfaction. 

“ But romantic,” said Mr. Batty, beaming 
amiably into her questioning eyes. 

“ I am much too old for romance,” said 
Mrs. Warne ; “ you never intended a flirta- 
tion here ? ” 

Struck speechless by her audacity, Mr. 
Batty rested on his oars, eyes riveted on 
hers. Too late he saw how he had been 


AFTERGLOW 


251 

misled by the false ear-marks of innocence, 
too late he perceived that she was afraid 
of nothing on earth, including an upset in 
the lake and a guileless savant, prematurely 
bald. 

“ Do you want to row out into the lake 
again ? ” he asked feebly ; “ it’s not dark 
out there.” 

She rested her pretty chin on her wrist 
and looked at the water. Presently she 
spoke of old times, of the great school, of 
the girls she had known there. The wind 
itself was no softer than her voice, the blue 
iris that budded shoreward was no sweeter 
than her eyes. 

“ Talk to me,” she said ; “ you don’t know 
how pleasant it is for me to think of the 
dear, dear past, and to see a phantom of 
days long vanished.” 

The phantom said he liked it too, in a 
voice that sounded firmer and more con- 
fident. He even giggled when Mrs. Warne 
recalled their former relations as tutor and 


252 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


pupil, sobering, however, when she asked 
him if he blushed as easily now as he did in 
those days. Of course he gave her a proof 
of his abilities in that line, and caught a 
crab in his confusion which tossed his hat 
among the rushes on the starboard bow. 

“ It’s my fault,” said Mrs. Warne, re- 
proaching herself aloud, — “ wait, I can reach 
it — if yon hold tight to my hand ” 

And the demoralisation of Mr. Batty pro- 
ceeded. 

About three o’clock another boat appeared, 
apparently seeking the sequestered nook 
where Mr. Batty and Mrs. Warne were now 
anchored. 

“ It’s Lanark and Miss Guernsey, con- 
found it ! ” said Mr. Batty in tones which 
brought a shade more colour into Mrs. 
Warne’s cheeks. 

“ And pray, Mr. Batty, may they not pass 
by ns without annoying yon ? ” she asked. 

“ Certainly, certainly,” replied Mr. Batty 
in pink confusion, “ I only thought ” 


AFTERGLOW 


253 


But what his thoughts might have been 
remains a mystery to this day, even to him- 
self. The chances are Mrs. Warne could 
have interpreted them better than anybody 
else. 

“ The boat has turned around; they are 
going away again,” she said mischievously ; 
“ I am so sorry we have taken their pretty 
shady anchorage, for — I think — they look 
like lovers.” 

“ They are,” said Mr. Batty bitterly, rec- 
ollecting the first night he had ever seen 
Alida Guernsey. 

Of course that would not do ; Mrs. 
Warne’s plump white wrist was immediately 
bitten by a midge, and it fell to Mr. Batty 
to apply a cooling layer of wet sand to it. 
And the demoralisation of that good man 
proceeded. 

Toward sunset, — but while the sun still 
hung in splendour above the empurpled Bar- 
rens, flooding moor and bog and wood and 
furrowed swale with molten gold, the plover 


254 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


began calling from the distant marshes and 
the great pad-frogs strummed and drummed, 
and the little tree-toad’s treble swelled from 
the thickets, answering the cry of a solitary 
night-hawk, winging, pitching, and soaring 
high in the rosy zenith. Then the sustained, 
high-keyed note of some hidden insects broke 
out from the bank above, the cricket’s theme 
throbbed from every tuft and stone and 
tussock, the blue-black swallows, with saf- 
fron breasts tinged by the last level sun- 
beams, sat twittering in rows on some bare 
branch, or dropped into the dusty high-road 
to rest a second and then soar upward 
through the drifting clouds of midges. 

There is a dangerous sweetness in the 
fresh June days, leading maid and man to 
frivolous thoughts, but the sweetness of the 
eventide is more dangerous still, for frivolity 
grows sober with sunset, and light words 
and light thoughts seem to conceal a deeper 
meaning. 

Mr. Batty, bathing his head in the sera- 


AFTERGLOW 


255 


phic afterglow, recognised with a helpless 
thrill that the witchery of the even was upon 
his soul. Words uttered under such influ- 
ences lose their airier and evanescent 
quality; glances count heavily; the touch 
of finger-tips is a serious pledge ; a sigh a 
solemn confession. It is a dangerous period 
of the day — this rosy apotheosis of the dawn. 
Dusk is far less dangerous ; moonlight is 
merely risqub ; starlight a provocation and 
excuse for insincerity incarnate. But this 
still fragrant atmosphere of rose was not 
created for diaphanous coquetry, and triflers 
had better hold their peace or speak of 
weighty things, weighing their words. 

“ You are so silent,” said Mrs. Warne ; 
and Venus herself must have wept at the 
unprotected innocence so utterly at the 
pretty widow’s mercy. 

A glance, a word, and Mr. Batty knew 
he should begin to say things that he 
wouldn’t say at any other period of the 
twenty-four hours. Heaven interposes yet, 


256 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


at intervals, and still uses its humblest serv- 
ants as instruments to work its will. And 
on this occasion Heaven directed a mosquito 
to the creamy cheek of Mrs. Warne, where 
it settled with satisfaction and bit long and 
deeply. 

“ Oh, dear ! ” said Mrs. Warne in real 
vexation ; “ I am perfectly certain my face 
will bear that mark for days and days ! ” 

The sun had set ; the spell was broken ; 
Mr. Batty drew from his coat pocket a small 
vial and presented it to Mrs. Warne. And 
while that pretty woman rubbed a few drops 
of the contents upon the indiscreet mosquito’s 
burning souvenir, Mr. Batty, knowing his 
danger was over, chose a subject of con- 
versation and slowly developed it : 

“ There are,” said he, “ various methods 
in vogue for successfully combating the 
poisonous effects of insect stings. After 
years of consideration and modest research 
I find the following method effective in many 
cases. Rub the affected region with a few 


AFTERGLOW 


257 


drops of the following antiseptic formula: 
Colourless extract of Skunk Cabbage, Col- 
ourless extract of Calendula ; Thymolate of 
Soda ; Sulpho-carbolate of Zinc ; Boracic, 
acid Extract of Witch-hazel ; Menthol; Oil of 
Wintergreen ; Oil of Spearmint ; and finally 
Oil of Eucalyptus. I believe that this 
mixture represents the latest advancement 
in chemical science and pharmaceutical skill, 
toward a non-toxic antiseptic, for wounds, 
bites of insects or animals, cuts, bruises, 
burns, urticaria, colds, tonsilitis, bronchitis, 
pharyingitis, hoarseness, mouth and tooth 
wash, ivy-poisoning, and as a deodoriser, also 
for sponging after shaving or bathing, 
cholera infantum, summer complaint, ty- 
phoid fever, and digestive disorders.” 

“ Mercy ! ” said Mrs. Warne in a faint 
voice. 

But he fixed her with his astigmatic eyes, 
and he heid her and dealt her justice : 

“ Internally, in cases of great exhaustion 

following the shock of being bitten by any- 
17 


258 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

thing between a gnat and a Horse, I sug- 
gest a little prescription of my own dis- 
covery, called ‘ Pyxem.’ Fyxem represents 
tHe active principles of life ; chemically an 
Iodophosphorised Proteid. It is made from 
the brain-substance, including the Pituitary 
Body, Thyroid and Thymus Glands, Sal- 
ivary and Intestinal Glands, and the Pan- 
creas. In its extraction, dear Mrs. Warne, 
I preserve the true nuclein-substance, never 
remaining intact by any ordinary chemical 
methods of enucleation, which by breaking 
up its molecular arrangement, disturbs its 
physiological activity.” 

“Would you mind rowing back now ?” 
said Mrs. Warne coldly. And Mr. Batty 
cheerfully bent to the oar and pulled for the 
shore, discoursing pleasantly all the time 
on the Iodophosphorised Proteid. 

“If ever,” thought Mrs. Warne to her- 
self, “ I go out again with that man! ” 

But she did. 


CHAPTER XIII 


the cambric mask 

IN WHICH THE READER, BEING QUITE AS 
DISCERNING AS THE AUTHOR, AND VASTLY 
MORE INTELLIGENT, WILL EXPERIENCE NO 
SURPRISE AT THE CONCLUSION 

When Sark and ex-trumpeter McMurray 
reached the house, the sun had almost dis- 
appeared behind the edge of the Barrens, 
and the tree-toads quavered and trilled from 
every clump of woodland. 

“ It will rain before morning,” said Sark, 
“ and I must close the scuttles on the hot- 
houses. Come in, lad, you are in perma- 
nent quarters now — for life if it suits you. 
I’ve no end of good underwear and clothes 
for you.” 

Molly Trig appeared in dainty cap and 

2 59 


26 o 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


apron, standing at attention with now and 
then a stolen oblique glance at the ragged 
trumpeter. 

“ Molly,” said Sark, “ this is trumpeter 
McMurray of my old command, who is going 
to take care of my stables and greenhouses. 
He will have the west room connecting with 
the gun-room. Take him there and see 
that he has everything he wants.” 

He stood a moment, watching Molly 
trip away, followed by the sturdy-limbed 
trumpeter, then he left the hall by the east- 
ern porch and started toward the green- 
houses. 

He could see Rose Ember moving about 
in the third greenhouse, and, after closing 
all the sky-lights in the other two, he en- 
tered the heavy-scented glass enclosure 
where the young girl was adjusting the 
gauze nettings for the night. 

She looked around over her shoulder as 
his footsteps crunched on the gravel, and 
he bade her good-evening in a low voice, 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


261 


saying that the tree-toads were sounding 
their weather warnings and that hatches 
must be lowered. 

“ What success did you have?” she asked 
timidly. 

He handed her his collecting box, telling 
her about the boreal species he had found 
near the watering trough on the Weazel- 
town road. 

“ Weazeltown ! Did you go there ? ” she 
exclaimed. 

“ Almost,” he replied. “ I went to find 
out about some matters that interested me, 
and I ran across the trumpeter of my old 
regiment living there. He’s a good fellow ; 
I have brought him back with me, and he’s 
going to take full charge of stables and 
greenhouses.” He added, smiling : — “ So 
you need not be obliged to dig up plantains 
any more.” 

“ But I like to ! ” she insisted in hurt 
astonishment. 

“ All right,” he laughed, “ you shall dig 


262 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


up as many as you please. But there is 
something else I wanted to speak about. On 
our walk back from the outskirts of Weazel- 
town one or two things happened, and I’m 
going to tell you about them because you 
ought to know.” 

She watched his face in silent attention 
as he stood fumbling in his pocket for some- 
thing which proved to be a folded bit of paper. 

He opened it and glanced at the contents. 
Her eyes were riveted on his. 

“ Did you ever hear of a man in Weazel- 
town named Nubar? ” he asked. 

“ No,” she said simply. 

“ Are you sure? Try to remember. 
They call him Gyp Nubar ” 

“Oh,” she said quickly, “you mean the 
Gipsy ! — I believe he is called Gipsy Nubar. 
But he doesn’t live anywhere permanently ; 
he is a real gipsy, I believe.” 

“When did you see him last?” asked 
Sark. 

“ Why, I can’t remember. I believe he 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 263 

came to the house to sell baskets a few 
weeks ago ” 

“ Exactly ; and he tells fortunes ? ” 

“ Oh, yes ; he told mine once.” 

“ Really,” said Sark, much interested ; 
“ do you remember what method he em- 
ployed ? Was it cards, or palmistry, or -” 

“ No, no,” she said ; “ he had a big sheet 
of paper covered with all sorts of designs — 

flowers, birds, animals ” 

bisects ?” 

“ Yes — there were insects too. He had 
them numbered, and he pretended to make 
calculations.” 

“Was this the paper?” asked Sark, 
handing her the sheet he had been examin- 
ing. 

“Yes, it is the same, I think,” replied 
Rose, surprised. 

“ Oh — thank you,” said Sark cheerfully ; 
— “ and please don’t speak of this to any- 
body just yet.” 

Rose smiled faintly, and stepped out into 


264 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

the evening glow. Sark closed and locked 
the door, and rejoined her on her way to the 
house. 

“ And is the finding of that paper your 
only adventure on the Weazeltown road ? ” 
she asked, as he stepped up beside her. 

“ No,” he said ; “ I met the gipsy himself, 
or rather I overtook him on the road, half 
an hour later. He was bound for Guern- 
sey’s, where that Venetian fete is going to 
take place on the lake to-night.” 

“But didn’t you give him his paper?” 
asked Rose, surprised. 

“ No ; I showed it to him, and he claimed 
it, swearing that he himself had drawn the 
designs on it. I pretended to doubt his 
statement, and challenged him to draw 
something in my note-book. He became 
very angry, saying that he was the descend- 
ant of ancestors who had drawn designs 
from the dawn of creation, — that the 
obelisks and tombs of Egypt were his wit- 
nesses, that the totems and bark-letters of 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 265 

the American Indians were his modern cor- 
roborations. 

“ Then I asked him if he himself were not 
partly Indian, and he said it was true, but 
that the Indians and Egyptians were origin- 
ally one people.” 

They had reached the house by this time 
and they mounted the steps of the porch 
together. He drew a big willow chair to 
the piazza rail. When she had seated her- 
self, he found a place on the railing beside 
her. 

After a short silence she asked him why 
he had not returned the paper to the gipsy. 

“ It’s rather a curious story,” replied 
Sark ; “ you see I refused to believe his 
claims to it until he satisfied me by draw- 
ing something in my note-book. He grew 
angrier and angrier, but at length he took 
my pencil and drew a beautiful outline of a 
dragon-fly, — the kind we find everywhere 
on the Barrens, — Anax Junius, you know. 
Then, just as he finished, the wind fluttered 


% 


266 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

the pages of my note-book, and, as he searched 
for the drawing among them, he came upon 
my name written on the fly-page. The next 
moment he had turned and bounded straight 
into the willow thicket ; McMurray, my 
trumpeter, and I were after him in a second, 
but upon my soul ! Miss Ember, an Apache 
in the hills is easier to catch than that 
jrgipsy ! ” 

“ But what in the world,” cried Rose, 
“ made him afraid of you ? ” 

“ Ah,” replied Sark quietly, “ that is a 
matter for speculation.” 

“ And you are speculating ? ” 

“ I have speculated.” 

“ Successfully? ” 

“ I think so.” 

“You are very provoking,” said Rose, 
“ but I am not a bit curious to know. And,” 
she continued scornfully, “ is that the sum 
total of your adventures this afternoon? ” 
“Not quite all ; I was shot at twice from 
ambush,” he replied coolly. 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


267 


She was on her feet in an instant, one 
arm laid on his ; but he only said : “I was 
not hit, — neither was McMurray — I only 
told you because I think this house is no 
longer safe for you after dark.” 

Her hand fell from his sleeve ; he turned 
and looked out across the darkening lake 
where a single boat was slowly drawing 
shoreward. ^ 

“ That must be Batty and Mrs. Warne,” 
he observed ; “ we’ll have a very jolly dinner 
to-night, with you and Lanark and Batty 

and Mrs. Warne ” 

“Who is Mrs. Warne?” asked Rose in 
a curiously choked voice. 

Sark told her about his encounter with 
the pretty widow, and seemed to find the 
episode most amusing to relate, but Rose 
did not even smile, and, when he had 
finished, she offered no comment, but sat 
silent and absorbed in the great willow 
chair, her sweet face indistinguishable in the 
falling night. 


268 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

The new moon lifted its silvered sickle 
over the trees beyond Guernsey’s. Rose 
saw it over her right shoulder and made 
a fervent wish which sent the hot blood 
surging to her face. 

Sark saw it and smiled grimly to himself, 
for the curved crescent hung like the blade 
of Damocles over the house of Guernsey, 
-and he fancied that both Guernsey and 
Creed would very soon become aware of 
facts calculated to deprive those thrifty 
financiers of their peace of mind. 

The blue dusk fell like velvet across the 
lawn ; the tiny lamps of the fire-flies broke 
out along the shadowy hedge ; the night- 
hawks flashed in and out of the rays from 
the lighted lantern at the gate-drive, and 
the lake-breeze stirred the pale roses on the 
trellis. 

And all the while questions were quiver- 
ing on Rose Ember’s lips, — questions she 
would never ask, — “ Who is this woman 
Mrs. Warne? What is she to you? Why 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


269 

should you find her pretty — and why do 
you tell me ? ” But her lips uttered no 
sound. 

Lanark sauntered in with his rod and 
creel to present some new and ingenious 
excuse for having caught nothing ; Mrs. 
Warne and Mr. Batty came strolling up the 
road from the boat-house below the Spook 
Bridge with their arms full of wild iris blos- 
soms. 

Rose met Mrs. Warne with a composure 
which changed to cool reserve when that 
pretty woman, ignoring Mr. Batty, permitted 
Sark to find a great bowl for the iris buds. 
After a while Rose slipped away from the 
shadowy group on the piazza and went to her 
own room — for she had a fresh cool boudoir 
in the house, although she seldom used it. 

In the hallway she came upon Molly Trig, 
hands clasped behind her trim back, listen- 
ing, open-lipped, to a tall, sunburnt young 
fellow who was saying : 

“ — And it would just raise the curls under 


270 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

your cap to hear them redskins a-squealin’ 
their heads off, and the carbines bangin’, 
and ” 

“ Molly,” said Rose, “ I am going to my 
room to dress. Please come and help me.” 

Ex-trumpeter McMurray stepped back 
against the wall, hand raised at salute ; 
Molly, flushed and disconcerted, trotted 
away after Rose; but her thoughts were 
with the trumpeter whose tales of the howl- 
ing West had done a certain work of their 
own in her credulous and palpitating bosom. 

Dinner was announced at eight ; Sark, 
descending the broad hall stairs, gave his 
arm to Mrs. Warne, and Mr. Batty and 
Lanark followed with Rose. 

At the iris-crowned table Mr. Batty said 
grace with his usual apparent suspicion of 
the impending repast, and the oysters were 
promptly accounted for by five very hungry 
young people. 

For the first time in his life Sark saw 
Rose in a dinner gown that left neck and 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


271 


arms bare. Her flushed youthful beauty, 
her pretty dignity, the velvet of her voice 
stirred him profoundly. He could not keep 
his eyes from her ; he tried to devote him- 
self to his guests, but, had Molly been less 
expert, trouble would certainly have fallen 
upon that repast. 

Mrs. Warne’s undisguised admiration for 
Rose Ember did a great deal toward that 
subtle harmony so necessary to make such 
little dinners delightful. Besides, her ex- 
perience taught her that Sark was in love 
with his beautiful vis-a-vis, and that tact was 
more necessary than salt at that banquet. 

“ Ah,” sighed Mr. Batty, when coffee had 
been served, “ if we might with propriety 
only crown each other’s brows with scented 
iris ! ” 

“Why not ! ” said Rose, laughing ; “lam 
sure I would crown anybody with pleasure ; 
would not you, Mrs. Warne? 9) 

Lanark pulled a handful of flowers from 
the centre-piece and gravely started to con- 


272 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


struct a chaplet for Mrs. Warne, while Rose 
deftly twisted the long iris stems into a 
wreath and calmly crowned herself with a 
saucy smile at Sark. 

Mr. Batty wore his wreath rakishly, and, 
when he raised his glass and drenched the 
centre-piece with a libation of champagne to 
the gods, Sark jogged his elbow as a caution. 

" I don’t care,” murmured Mr. Batty, 
“ I’ve eaten and drunk things that would 
excite the bones in a catacomb. Let me 
alone, Sark, I’m going to make music ! ” 

He pounced pla}dully upon the piano, and 
struck into the Bacchanalian march from 
“ Philemon and Baucis,” a proceeding that 
annoyed Sark intensely. 

“ Suppose we dance ! ” exclaimed Rose, 
leaning across and bending her flushed face 
toward Sark. 

“ You and I ? ” he asked. 

“ Everybody — of course ; but I’ll begin 
with you — if you wish it very, very much.” 

Under her scented iris chaplet her blue 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 273 

eyes sparkled, and the scarlet burned in her 
parted lips. 

Lanark called to Mr. Batty : “ Oh, play a 
waltz, won’t you ? ” and Mrs. Wame re- 
peated the request as Rose Ember stood up 
with an invitation for Sark in her eyes. 

But Mr. Batty was deaf to entreaties ; he 
broke into song, and an innocuous rendering 
of a pirate ballad brought the others around 
him in protest. 

“ Just one more,” he pleaded, and piped 
up: 

“ My old man he can’t go to sea, 

He ain’t no sailor an’ he never will be, 

He’ll just stay at home with the kids an’ me, 

For to light the fire in the morning ! ” 

But the company could stand no more, and 
he was coerced into a dismal waltz which he 
said was Spanish but which Rose asserted 
was a requiem. However, they were in the 
mood for dancing to any tune, and Sark 
slipped his arm around Rose Ember’s pliant 
waist. The room was littered in a few min- 
utes with iris flowers, and overturned chairs 
18 


274 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


and, after a while, they found it pleasanter 
to dance in the hall and out across the 
verandah. 

“ I’m tired of playing that old thing,” 
said Mr. Batty plaintively ; so Lanark took 
his place and started a two-step that sent 
the chairs flying in every direction. 

“You do dance well,” said Rose, sinking 
into a chair on the verandah as Lanark 
ended the music with a reckless bang ! — “ I 
never imagined you would condescend to 
frivolity.” 

“ They taught us that sort of frivolity at 
West Point,” replied Sark, “ but I never cared 
for dancing before I held you in my arms.” 

She looked out across the lake where 
the fire-flies sparkled above the water and 
the quiet stars inlaid the placid surface with 
fretted silver. 

Lanark passed them in the dark, a light 
coat over his evening dress. 

“ When is that Venetian fete coming off ? ” 
asked Sark. 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


275 


“ About eleven, I believe,” replied Lanark. 

“ Sure.lv, Mr. Lanark, you are not going 
ail' trout to-night,” said Rose mischiev- 
ously. 

“ 15,” replied Lanark with a malicious 
glance at Sark, “ I could find sport nearer 
home, I’d be very grateful, Miss Ember.” 
And he went away toward the boat-house, 
humming a lively air. 

“ What do you suppose he means by 
that ? ” asked Sark, vaguely irritated. But 
Rose said she didn’t know. 

A few moments later Mr. Batty and Mrs. 
Warne began to sing duets at the piano in- 
side, and the burden of every song was love. 

“ Oh, let’s walk,” said Sark impatiently, 
“ do you mind, Miss Ember ? ” 

“ I must go home,” said Rose. 

“So soon?” 

“ Yes — so soon.” 

After a few moments she rose silently, 
bidding him wait, and in a little while re- 
turned, dressed in her morning gown, tying 


276 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

the limp strings of her sunbonnet under her 
rounded chin. 

“ So much for vanity and the world,” she 
said softly. 

They passed soberly, side by side, across 
the lawn. As they came to the crest of the 
hill, Rose, glancing over her shoulder, saw 
the rockets begin to rise across the lake 
from Guernsey’s, and she stopped. 

“ See the blue and silver stars,” said Sark 
as the dull boom of a bomb followed by the 
sharper report in mid-air came on the night 
wind across the water. 

“ I was thinking,” she said, “ that if Mr. 
Lanark is really in love with Alida Guern- 
sey, she is going to have a great deal to be 
thankful for.” 

“ Why ? ” asked Sark ; then he added : 
“ Of course Lanark is a splendid fellow ” 

“ I mean something else,” said Rose ; “I 
mean that she will escape young Samuel 
Creed. Is Mr. Lanark going to run away 
with her? ” 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 277 

“ He’ll have to do something of the sort,” 
said Sark, “ for they mean to marry her to 
young Samuel, I understand.” 

“ Then why should he wait ! ” cried Rose 
in sudden anger : “ Why does he not take 
her away now ! — to-night ! If I were a man 
and I loved a girl ” 

“ What would you do ? ” asked Sark after 
a moment of silence. 

“ I would not let her suffer,” said Rose ; 
“ Oh, if men knew what women en- 
dured ” 

Again he waited for her to finish, but she 
said nothing more, and, finally, they started 
on again across the Barrens. 

Poor little Rose ! So all her resolution 
had vanished, — all her courage had exhaled 
with the dying daylight ! — And she had 
threatened to ask Sark to marry her — she 
had warned her father that she should offer 
herself to him unless the White Riders left 
him in peace. 

And now, this very day, somebody had 


278 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


shot at him from ambush, — worse still, a 
White Rider raid had been planned for that 
very night, and she knew it, and her father 
had cursed her and defied her to warn 
Sark. 

Could she warn him without betraying 
her miserable father? All day long she 
had been trying to think of some way, and, 
at last, desperate, she had decided to tell 
him that she loved him, and beg him to 
carry her that very night to Heavy Falls. 
She had dressed for the part ; a dozen times 
she felt that she had only to utter a single 
word ; but she could not. 

They were close to Ember’s house now ; 
the owls were hooting in the hemlocks, and 
a curlew answered from the marsh. 

“ Not that way,” she whispered, drawing 
him around to the side of the house, where 
the unpainted exterior stairway rose to her 
bedroom. 

The shadow of a great tree bathed the 
corner of the house in darkness, and Sark 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 279 

moved cautiously, holding his arms before 
his face. 

She thanked him for coming, and whis- 
pered her good-night, giving him a cold 
hand that trembled in his own. 

“ Good-night,” he whispered in return, 
and released her hand. 

She mounted two steps of the wooden 
stair ; he stood just below, bareheaded. 
Then, in a moment, she bent over the flimsy 
rail, and held out her hand again with a 
little sob. 

He had already taken her white fingers in 
his, — he had set his foot to the stairs, when 
a low clear whistle sounded close to them, 
and Rose sprang to the ground beside him. 

“ It’s the White Riders’ call,” she whis- 
pered feverishly ; “ they are abroad to-night, 
Don’t stay here, — don’t speak to me — go 
back through the Barrens and watch your 
house ! ” 

He looked at her in silence: she faced 
him breathlessly. 


280 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

Again the sweet bird call floated across 
the moorland, farther away now. 

“ Go ! ” she motioned with her lips ; and, 
as he did not stir, she laid one hand on his 
arm, — a soft little hand that crept upward to 
his shoulder, touched his neck, and clung 
there, as she raised her burning face to his. 
The next moment she was in his arms and 
their lips met. 

“ I love you,” she gasped — “ if you will 
take me, take me quickly.” 

The bird call broke out with startling 
distinctness so close at hand that Sark re- 
coiled. 

“ Go,” she murmured, — “ I will come to 
you to-morrow for always ! — always ! — oh, if 
you do really love me go, now ! And watch 
to-night ! ” 

He turned and kissed her, then passed 
swiftly under the shadowy trees and, entering 
the Barrens, was blotted out in the darkness. 
The next moment Ember appeared, lea'ding a 
saddled horse around the corner of the house. 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


281 


“ Is that you, Rose?” he said sharply. 
“ Well, what the devil are you doing here? 
Hey ? Been to Sark’s of course ! Well, 
you can quit that damned crank for good 
to-night ! ” 

She came up to where he had halted with 
the horse, and laid her hand on the animal’s 
glossy neck. 

“ Are you going with the White Riders 
to-night ? ” she asked steadily. 

“ Well, what if I am ?” he replied with 
a sneer. 

“ Because,” she said, “ Mr. Sark has heard 
that the Riders mean to do him mischief to- 
night, and he will shoot to kill.” 

“ He won’t monopolise the shooting,” 
replied Ember brutally ; “ get out of the 
way there!” — and he led his horse to 
the rear door and began to cover the beast 
from head to hock with white drapery. The 
horse appeared simply ghastly, looking out 
from the round eyeholes in the head-cover- 
ing, and Ember tied the floating sheets 


282 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


firmly under tlie animal’s neck and sat down 
to sort out his own mask and hooded robe 
of white. 

In the dark sitting-room Rose stood alone, 
listening to the gathering of the clan ; rider 
after rider rode up, horses disguised in white, 
cavaliers hideously shrouded in robes with 
pointed hoods, in which two round holes re- 
vealed living eyes that sparkled in the star- 
light. 

The incessant bird calls heralded the 
arrival of the ghostly horsemen ; not a word 
was spoken as they dismounted and stood 
bridle in hand at the rendezvous, an eerie 
company in truth, ranged there in the wan- 
ing starlight. 

Then an unexpected thing happened : 
there came the heavy double gallop of more 
horsemen, a shrill whistle, a cry, a rush of 
many feet, and Rose, springing to the porch, 
saw three riders gallop up leading a horse 
on which a man in disordered evening dress 
sat, bareheaded, coatless, with his arms 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 283 

bound behind him and a rope around his 
neck. And the man was John Sark. 

She did not cry out or swoon ; she saw 
them cluster around him, peering up at him 
through their slitted masks; she heard 
Murden’s voice whispering just outside the 
window : 

“ I got him at the Spook Bridge ; he 
showed fight but we slung him on to Nolan’s 
horse. Now, damn him, he’ll pay me for 
my trouble ! ” 

“ You ain’t going to lynch him,” came 
Ember’s voice in a hoarse whisper. 

“ Lynch him ! I’ll do something worse 
than stringing him up and riddling him ! 
I guess I’ve been laying for him long enough 
— outside his hedge there while he was danc- 
ing with Rose on the verandah.” 

“ It’s murder,” stammered Ember. 

“ Is it,” replied Murden coolly ; “ where is 
Rose ? ” 

The next moment he came heavily into 
the house, swinging his white robe over his 


284 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


shoulder, but Rose had slipped up to her 
own room like a flash. 

“ She’s in her den,” said Ember, follow- 
ing him into the house ; “ I’ll get her locked 
in safe.” But when Harvey Ember had 
climbed the inside stairway to Rose’s room, 
he found the chamber untenanted. 

“ Look here ! ” whispered Murden fiercely, 
“ if that girl of yours has gone off with the 
alarm, I’ll see you get a bullet in your 
whisky-soaked hide ! ” 

“ She hasn’t ! ” said Ember, cursing, “ she 
don’t dare squeal on me.” 

“ Come on then,” said Murden ; u we have 
no time to waste here anyway.” And he 
descended the stairs heavily. 

Outside Sark still sat his horse, survey- 
ing the goblin crew with cool, alert eyes. 
At a signal the band mounted, but there 
seemed to be some confusion, for one rider’s 
horse was missing. However there was no 
time to lose waiting for one man, and the 
long clear whistle, thrice repeated, set the 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 285 

horsemen off at a gallop, straight out into 
the Barrens. 

A big white-clad cavalier led them, 
flourishing a rawhide, and the others fol- 
lowed, crowding closely around Sark, who 
sat his horse like the trooper he was in spite 
of his bound hands and the noose that cut 
his neck. 

They had been riding for five minutes 
through the darkness when the first flurry 
of rain struck them full in the face. In a 
moment sheets and hoods and masks were 
soaked and clinging ; the horses’ disguises, 
wringing wet and stretched out of shape, 
began to impede the animals’ movements ; 
one or two stumbled, and for a moment con- 
fusion reigned in the little squadron. 

It was during that brief moment that 
Sark felt a sharp sting across his knuckles. 
Somebody had deliberately drawn a knife- 
blade over his helpless bound hands, and 
the stealthy cruelty of the act roused every 
fighting spark in him. He looked around 


286 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


desperately, teeth set, feeling the warm 
blood running into his clenched palms. 
Suddenly the cold knife-blade stole over his 
hands again ; there came a quick release of 
pressure around his wrists, and his swollen 
hands tingled with returning circulation. 

Somebody had cut his bonds. 

He seized the severed rope in his fingers, 
still keeping his clasped hands behind him, 
although the effort was purest torture. But 
he knew he had a friend among the hideous 
horsemen, — which one he could not tell, — 
and he meant to do what he could to deserve 
the good offices of the secret ally. 

And now the leader halted at the edge of 
a swamp pond, flat, glossy black, over which 
the mist curled like smoke ; and the horses 
trampled up on every side, splashing 
through the bog that shook and quaked 
beneath their tread. 

“ Are you going to throw me into the black 
quicksands?” asked Sark of a rider who 
was releasing his torn neck from the noose. 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 287 

There was no answer ; the rain poured 
down steadily on the marsh; the horses 
stamped and snorted at the black danger 
lying beneath their very feet. 

Then the man with the rawhide walked 
his horse slowly up to Sark, and bade the 
prisoner dismount ; and, the next moment, 
Sark had sprung clean out of his saddle and 
was at the White Rider’s throat. In an 
instant the whole band of horsemen were 
in wildest confusion ; the horses backed and 
reared through the driving rain, a shot was 
fired, another and another, and somebody 
shrieked : “ My God ! I’m in the quick- 

sands ! ” 

Before the wretched man could cry again 
another rider was floundering and scream- 
ing in the unseen death ; a terrible panic 
followed, and the horsemen, cursing and 
shouting, wheeled back into the Barrens 
and stampeded in every direction. 

Sark had torn the mask from Murden’s 
face and hurled the heavy, infuriated rider 


288 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


at another horseman, who collapsed and 
went down with a crash into the mud. Now 
he was in the saddle alone, with both arms 
free, and the fighting blood raging through 
his veins. He put his horse at a White 
Rider who was shooting at him, and bore 
horse and man to the ground. Two others, 
struggling in the swamp, dragged their 
horses out of the ooze and started across the 
Barrens in frantic flight ; and after them 
galloped Sark, ventre-a-terre , with murder 
in his eye, and, in his bleeding fist, a raw- 
hide. He could scarcely see the two dim 
forms ahead of him for the driving rain and 
the darkness, but he shook out his bridle 
and swung his terrible rawhide, and galloped 
at the phantom shapes that fled before him. ' 
Suddenly he came on one of them and cut 
him from his saddle, fairly lifting him into 
the air with the frightful blow, but the raw- 
hide was torn from his hand, and he gal- 
loped on after the other fleeing ghost that had 
already disappeared in the blackness ahead. 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 289 

Already tlie lights of his own house 
twinkled through the sheeted rain on the 
left ; he caught a glimpse of the flying 
rider passing in silhouette before his own 
windows, and with a fierce laugh he fairly 
flung his horse across the valley, wheeled 
to the left, and cut the intervening angle with 
a single bound. The next moment he seized 
the hideous shrouded form of his antagonist, 
and tore him from the saddle. The masked 
rider twisted and fought and writhed, but 
Sark slipped to the soaked turf, dragging 
his victim with him. Then began a wrest- 
ling match in the darkness, that ended 
almost as quickly as it had begun, when 
Sark flung the rider on his back and 
stripped the mask from his face, — tore the 
white mask from a face, ashy pale, in which, 
for a second, two great blue eyes flashed at 
him under a mass of heavy tangled hair, 
then closed slowly. 

Rose Ember had fainted in his arms. 
l 9 


CHAPTER XIV 


THE MASTERS OE FINANCE 

A CHAPTER CONTAINING MATTERS OF MORE 
OR LESS IMPORTANCE TO EVERYBODY 
CONCERNED. 

The disintegration of the lawless band 
known as the White Riders is part of the 
history of Mohawk County ; their secrets, 
signals, ritual and codes are now known. 
And with their final disappearance, the 
other secret brotherhoods of the county dis- 
solved into legendry as quietly as they had 
come into existence. 

However, on that clear, sparkling, dewy 
morning in June, John Sark, mounted, car- 
rying a shot-gun with butt resting on his 
thigh, rode out into the Barrens after the 
biggest game that walks on two legs. On 

290 


THE MASTERS OF FINANCE 291 

his left hand rode ex-trumpeter McMurray, 
armed with a Winchester ; and, a hundred 
yards to the right, Reginald Lanark cantered 
through the scrub, a heavy ten-bore duck- 
gun resting in the hollow of his arm. The 
rear of this invading horde was skilfully 
covered by Mr. Batty on a sturdy plough- 
horse, a ColFs self-cocking revolver in 
either hand and two more in his belt. 

The reconnaissance presently stretched out 
in a single line, moving slowly west by 
south, riding through every tuft of rushes, 
beating alder coverts, scouring scrub and 
tussock and the long swales where purple 
bunch-grass signalled safe conduct for the 
traveller of the Barrens. 

Over the spongy moss, green and gold, 
over the wastes of reindeer moss that 
showered the air with silver flakes, over 
acres of huckleberry and wild strawberry 
and blackberry interlacing shrub and vine 
in blossoming network, they cantered, weap- 
ons poised, keen eyes always searching. 


292 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


Their awkward, distorted shadows fled away 
over the moorland in front, leading them an 
eerie chase toward the looming purple gloom 
of the horizon ; their skirmish line routed 
the white-tailed rabbit from its form and 
scattered the grey snipe into whirling flocks, 
that drove skyward like snow-squalls in a 
whirlwind. The tall blue heron stood in 
his pre-empted pool to watch them pass, then 
resumed a heavenward contemplation; the 
hell-diver dived and looked and dived again, 
only to peer through the miniature waves 
after these intruders in the desolate land ; 
and, far across the moorland tangle, where 
the ash trees mingled with poplar and white 
birch, the young deer huddled and crowded 
together, big ears and slender muzzles 
pointed toward the distant line of horsemen, 
until the buck whistled, and the herd turned 
with a bound and a flash of the white flags 
of a hopeless truce, eternally broken, but 
never by the deer. 

When at length the hunters of big game 


THE MASTERS OF FINANCE 293 

came to the edge of the black sands, — that 
dreadful polished stretch of ooze threaded 
by tiny streams flowing swiftly over silvery 
streaks of bottomless quicksand, Sark dis- 
mounted and reconnoitred his way to the 
edge of the silent morass. 

There were signs enough of what had 
passed the night before, — here a revolver 
lay in an iridescent pool of water, there a 
tattered, rain-soaked sheet was caught on a 
bush. But nothing human, or what had 
once been human remained, save the im- 
print of hoofs that had hatched the muddy 
brink into a slough. 

Lanark shrugged his shoulders and threw 
his gun over his shoulder ; McMurray made 
a bundle of what relics they found, while 
Sark, on foot, started on a cautious demi- 
tour of the swamp. He had gone perhaps 
a quarter of a mile when something just be- 
yond the swamp grass moved, — something 
white — and in a second he had it covered 
with his shot-gun. After a few moments 


294 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


he lowered his gun, and slowly picked his 
path toward the white object that still flut- 
tered and waved in the summer wind ; and, 
when he came nearer, he saw it was a bit of 
white cotton cloth from which a human 
hand protruded, clenching a bunch of grass. 

He had a rope twisted around his waist ; 
noosing it, he tried again and again to lasso 
the ghastly thing in the mud. At last he 
succeeded ; the noose settled fairly and 
tightened, and he drew the bundle of mud 
and flesh and rags partly in among the 
rushes, — near enough to see the half-buried 
face. It was Murden. 

But there was more to do before he called 
the others from their picket duty in the 
scrub ; something else that he had over- 
looked was sticking up out of the wire-grass 
just beyond Murden ; and again, crushing 
back his horror, he cast his noose and drew 
his burden shoreward. There were two of 
them this time ; and he knew them both. 

After a while, however, he could stand no 


THE MASTERS OF FINANCE 295 

more for still other signs signalled the 
hiding place of death among the reeds, and 
the hot close air made him faint. 

He passed his hand across his eyes, gasped 
for air, raised his gun and fired. Then', as 
the answering report came leaping out of 
the thickets to the east, the whole bank on 
which he stood quaked, trembled, and slowly 
slid toward the quicksands. 

With blanched cheeks and shaking limbs, 
Sark staggered and fell, clutching the wire- 
grass. It broke ; he seized it again ; again 
it gave way, but this time he had his fingers 
entwined in the roots of a dead shrub which 
barely held imbedded until he rolled over 
on his face upon the solid moss. 

Lanark galloped up as he rose and reeled 
back from the swamp’s edge where now 
nothing remained of his gruesome flot- 
sam, — not even his own rope and shot- 
gun. 

He laid his head against Lanark’s knee, 
holding to the saddle with both hands. 


296 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

“ They were there,” he said weakly, — 
“ Murden, Ember and Dagberg. The bank 
slid, — I had a close call myself ” 

Lanark surveyed the surface of the 
swamp. 

“ You’ll never see them again, Jack,” he 
said ; “ come on ; climb up behind me.” 

With its double burden the horse trotted 
back to the eastern end of the morass, where 
Sark mounted his own horse, still trembling 
with the horror of the hidden death that lay 
under the ooze and slime of the wind-stirred 
rushes. 

He signalled McMurray to his side, then 
wheeled and set off at a steady gallop for 
Amber Lake, followed by Lanark and Mr. 
Batty. 

“ Come abreast,” he said to McMurray, 
half turning his head ; and, when the ex- 
trumpeter had forced his mount up close, 
Sark ordered him to remain mute regarding 
the discovery of the bodies. 

McMurray touched his hat in silence. 


THE MASTERS OF FINANCE 297 

“ Did you go the rounds from the dis- 
tillery at sunrise ? ” asked Sark. 

“Yes, sir; Murden, as you know now, 
hadn’t come back to his store ; Dagberg’s 
shanty was empty, but his horse stood at the 
door in a terrible state ; Con Nolan lay in 
bed with his ribs broken ; and Spike Mitchel 
had been seen in a buck-board, drivin’ like 
a crazy man for the railroad. As for Harve 
Ember, of course his house was empty.” 

“ Of course,” replied Sark mechanically, 
thinking of other matters that bid fair to 
wreck what years of life might remain to 
him. 

“ Pardon, sir,” observed McMurray, “ but 
I have the gipsy safe in the cellar.” 

“ What ! ” exclaimed Sark in astonish- 
ment ; “ where did you catch him ? ” 

“ I ketched him last night, sir, after you 
left the house to walk with Miss Ember. I 
was thinkin’ of what you said — how as that 
Gyp Nubar would take your note-book to 
Creed and Guernsey ; so I just got a boat 


298 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

and rowed over to the fireworks, and the 
first thing I clapped eyes on was this here 
Nubar comm’ out of Guernsey’s house.” 

“ But how in the world did yon get him 
into my cellar? ” asked Sark. 

“ Oh, I hit him on the head with a oar 
and slung him into the skiff. He waked 
up before I could get across the lake, but 
he didn’t show fight and went to the cellar 
very meek. Molly, she is doin’ sentry at 
the cellar door, sir.” 

“ Didn’t Guernsey or Creed or any of those 
people interfere with you ? ” demanded 
Sark. 

“ Oh, no, sir ; Creed, he began to shout — 
but I had my oar handy, and I backed down 
to the landing with the gipsy under my arm 
like a dead coyote.” 

“ I fancy Creed and Guernsey will be 
over to see me this morning,” said Sark 
with a menacing laugh, as he galloped his 
horse up to the porch of his own house. 

Lanark and Mr. Batty arrived a moment 


THE MASTERS OF FINANCE 299 

later and dismounted, the latter with 
moans. 

“ It’s not a horse,” he said to Sark ; 
“ it’s part camel, part buck-saw ; I’ll ride 
a kangaroo next time ; — here, take your 
pistols ! ” 

McMurray led the horses around to the 
stable while Lanark, with his arms full of 
weapons, climbed the stairs to the gun-room, 
and Mr. Batty crept into the parlour where 
for a quarter of an hour he practised sitting 
down. 

In the dining-room Sark found Mrs. 
Warne, preparing a bowl of beef-tea ; she 
looked up anxiously as he entered, but he 
only paused long enough to ask how Miss 
Ember was feeling, and then disappeared 
into the kitchen where Molly and fat Sarah 
paraded up and down before the bolted cellar 
panels. 

“ Give me a lamp,” he said, unlocking the 
door ; “ now, Molly, go and help Mrs. 
Warne care for Miss Ember. And if Mr. 


3 oo THE CAMBRIC MASK 

Creed and Mr. Guernsey call, seat them on 
the verandah.” 

His interview with the gipsy in the cellar 
lasted long enough to make fat Sarah 
nervous, and she armed herself with an axe 
and a frying-pan and poked her turbaned 
head down the cellar. 

“ Foh de Ian’s sake, Mars’ Sark, yoh, 
sutt’nly done scare me ! Is yoh jes’ ber- 
ry in’ de co’ps, suh ? — or might you be 
desirin’ moh pistols, suh ? ” 

At that moment Sark emerged, conducting 
the gipsy to the outer air, and fat Sarah 
scowled a terrible scowl as they passed, which 
scared the wretched gipsy so badly that Sark 
was obliged to support him to the side door. 

“ It’s a close call for you, Gyp,” he said ; 
“ but I believe you have told the truth.” 

The gipsy crept out into the fresh sun- 
light and waited for his dismissal, cringing 
like a wild creature in a pit. 

“ It’s just that,” said Sark, “ which makes 
me release you. I never could bear the 


THE MASTERS OF FINANCE 301 

sight of a wild thing in a cage, — Pm too 
fond of freedom myself. You would die in 
prison, — and after all you are not particu- 
larly guilty of anything except trying to get 
your fortune-card back. However, there are 
less rascally methods in vogue for recover- 
ing personal property, and I should advise 
you to follow them or take to the woods for 
good. You are free.” 

“ And my card,” whispered the gipsy. 

Sark handed the curiously designed sheet 
of paper to him. 

“ Tell your fortunes, sell your baskets, 
but steer clear of the White Riders,” said 
Sark, affably. 

“ I’ll tell yours now,” replied the gipsy so 
quickly that Sark almost started. 

The gipsy smiled, stooped, picked a dan- 
delion which had gone to seed, and blew the 
silky down from the stem at one breath. 

“ Your troubles, sir,” he said quietly, — 
“ are scattering like this ghost-flower ? ” 

“ Thank you,” replied Sark grimly. 


302 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


The gipsy’s eyes sparkled ; he raised one 
dusky hand : 

“ They who gallop in robe and mask, 

Ask of the devil an easier task ; 

Never again the moon shall see 
Sign of the chief or company. 

Yet there are riders who ride with death 
To succour the soul and the body’s breath 
Of hunter and hunted, for death and life ; 

And a burial shroud may hide a wife ! 

Read your riddle ere day is done ; 

One can answer, and only one ! 

This of a rider in white you’ll ask 
And find the key in the Cambric Mask ! ” 

“ What do you know of the cambric 
mask?” said Sark harshly. 

“ Cross my palm, Romi,” whined the 
gipsy, creeping up closer; “ cross it with 
silver in the name of her you love.” 

“ In the name of your impudence, my 
friend,” said Sark, steadying his voice. He 
dropped a coin into the dark hand adding : 
“How was it that you did not know me 
there on the road until you saw my name in 
the note-book ? ” 


THE MASTERS OF FINANCE 303 

“ I did know you, Romi,” replied tke 
gipsy. He lied. But he only followed his 
profession. 

When he had gone, Sark re-entered the 
house with clouded face and troubled eyes. 
He found Mr. Batty seated in the parlour in 
bitter dejection. 

“ First I couldn’t sit down,” he said ; 
“ now I can’t stand up. In heaven’s name, 
Sark, draw that sofa over here and let me 
roll off on it ! ” 

Lanark passed the door, pausing to 
whisper to Sark, then hastened away 
toward the boat-house below the Spook 
Bridge. 

“ Come, come, Batty,” said Sark im- 
patiently ; “ go up and change your clothes ; 
Mrs. Warne will nurse you and admin- 
ister arnica or .something.” 

“ I can’t ! ” moaned Mr. Batty ; “ I’d do 
it if I could.” 

But Sark pulled him to his feet and 
started him up the stairs, which he found 


304 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


more agonising to mount than even the 
plough-horse. 

“ It’s an injury,” he protested, “ that is 
hopelessly sui generis ! Nobody can pity me, 
nobody can soothe me, no tender woman 
can apply cooling salves in my case ! There’s 
no romance in it, Sark, and Mrs. Warne 
can mind her own affairs ! ” 

Molly came down-stairs saying that Miss 
Ember was awake and feeling much better, 
and would Mr. Sark please see her as soon 
as she was dressed. 

“ Yes,” said Sark ; “ say that I will come 
in half an hour. And, by the way, Molly, I 
have suggested to ex-trumpeter McMurray 
that you and he confine your chaste saluta- 
tions to the kitchen.” 

Molly mounted the stairs, scarlet face in 
her apron, and Sark, biting an unlighted 
cigar, walked out to the piazza whence he 
could already see Joshua Creed and Daniel 
Guernsey hurrying across the lawn. 

The morning had grown hotter ; the sun 


THE MASTERS OF FINANCE 305 

blazed in a cloudless sky, sending even the 
chickens under the lilac bushes and the 
pigeons to the shadow of the eaves ; but 
those two good men, Joshua Creed and Dan- 
iel Guernsey, hastened on, regardless of the 
sun’s searching rays, perspiring, dusty, un- 
shaven and wild-eyed. 

Creed outran Guernsey and dashed onto 
the veranda where Sark now sat placidly 
smoking. 

“ It’s a swindle ! ” shouted Creed, swing- 
ing his lank arms like two flails, — “ its a 
darned swindle an’ conspiracy, an’ I’ll hev 
the law on ye ! ” 

Guernsey waddled up, coughing and pant- 
ing and groaning, and fell into a basket-chair, 
making awful faces at Sark. 

“ What is the matter? ” said Sark unmoved. 

Creed broke into passionate accusations, and 
Guernsey squealed from his basket-chair, 
and Sark smoked impassively until the 
tumult subsided from sheer want of breath. 

“I’m ruined,” gasped Creed, — “ you hev 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


306 

been an’ ruined me, John Sark, an’ I’ll let 
the court decide about them false pretenses.” 

“ Rubbish ! ” said Sark calmly ; “ don’t at- 
tempt to read the law to me. And,” he con- 
tinued, “ the less you have to say the better, 
Mr. Creed. You and your partner there in 
that chair wilfully and deliberately attempted 
to swindle me out of land which you believed 
to be valuable, land that you thought I held 
worthless because I had not heard of this 
railroad improvement. That is what they 
call in finance a masterly stroke of business, 
I suppose. I did not care to sell the land 
for reasons that I gave at the time. You 
insisted, and finally offered so much that I 
consented to sell it for Miss Ember’s sake. 
She has her money ; you will have your 
land in a year. What more do you wish ? ” 

“ But you own the railroad that they was 
a-buildin’ here ! Yon air the owner of the 
Ulster an’ Chenango ! ” howled Guernsey, 
rolling around in his chair. “ An’ no w 
you’ve gone an’ stopped the work, an’ 


THE MASTERS OF FINANCE 307 

tliis here land ain’t worth a sack o’ 
shucks ! ” 

“ Why didn’t you find that out before ? ” 
said Sark quietly. 

“ Didn’t we go for to find out every thing ! ” 
wailed Guernsey. “ Didn’t Joshua Creed go 
to New York City for to ask gratooitous 
infurmation ? An’ didn’t they tell him that 
the U. & C. company owned the road, and 
that Lanark was attorney ? ” 

“ They told the truth,” replied Sark ; 
“ Lanark is the attorney, and I am the Com- 
pany. I was only a stockholder when you 
bought my land ; but I bought the U. & C. 
branch road from the company within twenty- 
four hours of the time that you purchased 
my land.” 

Joshua Creed’s seamed face turned the 
colour of green clay. He dug his bony 
fingers into his palms and glared vacantly 
at Sark. 

“ Why should I build this road to improve 
your land, bought from me for half its 


308 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

value ? ” said Sark. “ You would Have bought 
it for a dollar if you could. You talk to me 
of fraud ? I am carrying out a bargain 
forced upon me by you, in hopes of defrauding 
me of the value of this property. I could 
forgive you that, but I never will forgive 
your persecution of Miss Ember, nor your 
insults to her under plea of a courtship as 
wicked and disgusting as anything I ever 
heard of in all my life ! ” 

Guernsey collapsed with a hopeless 
squeal ; Creed turned a haggard face on 
Sark. 

“I guess judgment is heavier agin me 
than you know,” he said ; “ lam visited by 
the Lord in my only son Samuel, which he 
has run off to York with the corps de bally 
girls an’ telegraphs me fur my blessin’.” 

The horrible pallor on the old man’s face, 
the nervous contortions of his bloodless lips, 
his grey, unkempt hair, his gnarled fingers 
picking at each other, had their effect on 
Sark. He swung around toward Guernsey, 


THE MASTERS OF FINANCE 309 

who lay inert and stupefied in the basket- 
chair. 

“ I am no financier,” he said ; “ your 
buying and selling and lying and perjury 
disgust me. God knows how men can pass 
a lifetime at it, but there are strange things 
in life and a man must live to learn about 
them. ” 

He stood up, tossing his cigar over the 
rail. 

“ I am going to buy your land back from 
you, and I am going to pay you exactly what 
you paid for it,” he said slowly ; “ not from 
philanthropic motives, for if two rascals ever 
deserved retribution, I fancy you fill all 
requirements, but because I will not have 
the stain of jobbery or sharp dealing on me 
or mine ? ” 

Guernsey, eyes popping from his apo- 
plectic head, had struggled into a sitting 
posture, but Sark turned on him sternly and 
bade him hold his peace. 

“ There is one condition in this,” he said ; 


3 io THE CAMBRIC MASK 

“ Mr. Lanark is going to marry your niece, 
Miss Alida Guernsey, and if you make a 
single objection — if you utter one bowl — 
if you so mucli as open your moutb, I’ll 
drop tbe whole affair and Lanark will marry 
your niece into the bargain ! Good after- 
noon, gentlemen. You will receive a cer- 
tified check on Monday next, and Mr. Lan- 
ark will attend to the whole affair.” 

He walked slowly back into the house, 
wondering whether he had been too lenient 
with the financiers of Amber Lake. Then 
he shook his broad shoulders with a sigh of 
relief ; he was done with trading and buy- 
ing and dickering for ever, and he thanked 
Heaven for that, and went up-stairs. 

Molly was standing by Rose Ember’s 
chamber door when he entered the upper 
hallway. 

“ May I come in, Miss Ember? ” he asked. 

“ Come,” she replied from within. 

He had intended to make her tell her own 
story, to justify herself, to explain how she 


THE MASTERS OF FINANCE 311 

came to be riding among the ghastly horse- 
men who were conducting him to his death. 
He knew perfectly well that her purpose 
had been to aid him ; he knew now who it 
was that had cut the rope on his wrists. 
But he wished her to make it clear why 
she had never before warned him of what 
she must have known ; he wished to know 
why she had shielded her father. 

Suddenly, as his hand fell on the door, the 
face of Harvey Ember as he had last seen it, 
came before his eyes — ghastly, pallid, marred 
with mud. And yet, in death, a strange 
change had come into the drunkard’s weak 
features, — the shadow of that fine nobility 
which marked his daughter’s high-bred face. 

“ He may have been that kind of man,” 
thought Sark ; u why should she not have 
loved him once ? Then, after all, she was 

his own daughter ” 

He opened the door and entered. 


CHAPTER XV 


THE MISTRESS OF ROMANCE 

CONTAINING A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE 
AILMENT OF THE WORLD FOR THE READER 
TO DIAGNOSE as the reader CHOOSES 

Toward the end of August, when the 
young woodcocks’ wings are stronger and 
their sleek breasts grow saffron like the 
breasts of summer robins, the trout leave the 
bottom sands where they have been cooling 
their golden bellies through the hot July 
solstice, and move in solid schools toward 
the lake’s limpid inlet. Then the bull-trout’s 
spots become glowing coals of fire, and the 
gravel beds begin to swarm with slender 
darting shadows, and the kingfishers splash 

in the spawning beds, and the young grouse 
3 12 


THE MISTRESS OF ROMANCE 313 

dust themselves in the blackberries. Then, 
too, the slow soaring hawks drift through 
the blue, turning, wheeling, sheering over 
the woodlands, now misty with their bloom 
of August haze ; and the crows despatch their 
ambassadors to the four quarters of the wind, 
summoning their kindred to the yearly 
plebiscite. 

On the Barrens the great blue heron’s 
note fell echoing like the sharp thwack of an 
axe ; the raccoon’s weird whistle sounded 
from the cornfield, the velvet hung raw and 
red where the young bucks crossed antlers, 
and the jays screamed all day in the yellow- 
ing woods. 

A sharper, fresher scent filled the night 
when the wind rose on the moors ; the 
sweet-fern grew golden and dry, the tall 
brake curled up at the tips, green moose- 
berries turned scarlet, and the perfumed 
bloom of crimson bergamot carpeted the 
brook’s moist banks with petals, brilliant as 
dying cinders. 


34 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


But the death of the year was yet far away, 
— that sombre leaden time, when the odour of 
the woods grows rank and penetrating, when 
musty puff-balls explode in a shower of snuff, 
when the smoke blows down under damp 
gables, and the fur on the domestic cat 
crackles, to that reserved animal’s acute 
mortification. 

The death of the year was far away-nay the 
ripening had not fairly begun, for the wind 
was not yet soaked with the fruity perfume 
from the orchards, and the red-stalked buck- 
wheat still remained unstacked. 

But the smack of the lake breeze was 
tinged with a winey flavour that must have 
tinctured the water too, for the trout had 
been jumping deliriously in the evenings, 
and the golden grasses thrilled all day, and 
the amber essence dripped from the fine- 
groomed spruces, where drunken butterflies 
crawled and spread their vermilion-banded 
wings, drinking deep in tipsy company with 
vicious ants and grey-striped flies. 


THE MISTRESS OF ROMANCE 315 

From that day in August when she had 
sent for Sark to come to her chamber, Rose 
Ember had not left her room. Not that she 
was unable ; she was strong and physically 
healthy. But she had learned from his eyes 
her father’s fate — she had divined it in the 
sound of his step as he opened the door at 
her command, — and she would not allow him 
one word until she had dragged the entire 
story from him, sentence by sentence. Then 
she had sent him away. 

The effect on her had been strange : she 
did not give way to grief, she sought neither 
consolation nor advice. But from that mo- 
ment she sank into an apathy which was not 
an acceptance of sorrow nor a dull acquies- 
cence in grief. There was nothing of iner- 
tia, either mental or physical in her attitude, 
neither did there appear to be any fixed 
purpose or definite resolve. She lived, day 
after day, in her room, occupied with what- 
ever presented itself to her ; she ate, drank, 
slept : she sewed a great deal on a black 


3i 6 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


gown she was making, but she never spoke 
of Sark nor of her father. 

The struggle in the dark, when she had 
wrestled on the soaked sod with Sark, had 
apparently left nothing but superficial in- 
juries : there were black and blue marks on 
her limbs, but these gradually disappeared. 

For a few days Sark respected her silence 
and seclusion, but, when at length he found 
that her attitude bid fair to endure indefi- 
nitely, he went to Lanark, deeply troubled. 

“ It’s natural,” said Lanark, u wait a 
bit.” 

Sark did wait; every night he went to 
Lanark with haggard eyes to seek some ex- 
planation for her attitude, but Lanark, at 
length could invent no more reasons, and 
advised him to send for a physician. 

“ Won’t she allow you an interview for a 
single minute? ” he asked, watching Sark’s 
aimless steps. 

“ No ; I have sent Molly to her for the last 
time with such a message : now I’m going 


THE MISTRESS OF ROMANCE 317 

to have Batty see her and find out what on 
earth all this means.” 

“ Batty ? ” repeated Lanark sarcastically. 

“ Why not ? ” replied Sark warmly ; 
“ he’s as clever a doctor as I ever knew. 
He invented that mosquito ointment, didn’t 
he?” 

“ It isn’t a doctor yon want,” said Lanark. 
“Miss Ember has some idea in her head 
that you were responsible for her father’s 
death. If I were yon I’d knock on her door 
and demand an explanation in person.” 

“ I can’t do that,” said Sark miserably ; 
“ it’s my house, you know.” 

“ Then I’ll do it,” growled Lanark, — “ and 
I’ll do it now ! This thing might as well 
be settled to-day as next year.” 

He rose, in spite of Sark’s protestations, 
put his pipe in his pocket, shook the ashes 
from sleeve and lapel, and marched up- 
stairs. 

Rose opened her door at his knock, but 
did not invite him to enter. She had been 


318 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


packing her two trunks ; the floor was lit- 
tered with shoes and stockings and toilet 
articles. 

“Yon — you are not going away?” stam- 
mered Lanark. 

“ Yes ; I am going to-night. I would 
have gone a month ago but I had no black 
gown to wear. I have made one here.” 

Lanark, completely puzzled, stared at the 
pale-faced girl. For the first time there 
were traces of tears in her eyes. 

“ See here, Miss Ember,” he blurted out, 
“ do yon fancy that Jack — that Mr. Sark — 
had anything to do with your father’s 
death ? ” 

She shrank back with horror stamped on 
every feature. 

“ God forbid ! ” she whispered ; “I never 
dreamed of such a thing ! ” 

“ Then why on earth do you treat him 
like this ? ” cried Lanark in growing excite- 
ment ; “ for a month you have refused to 
see him ; you have never mentioned him to 


THE MISTRESS OF ROMANCE 319 

Molly ; you have shut yourself up in this 
room denying everybody except the servant. 
There is some strange misunderstanding 
somewhere or other.” 

“ There is no misunderstanding,” she re- 
plied firmly; “and I am going to see Mr. 
Sark to-day because he has my money and 
I need some of it for my journey.” 

“ Your money ? ” said Lanark ; “ do you 
mean the money for the land ? Didn’t you 
know he had used it to buy back the land? ” 

Rose swayed where she stood, then fairly 
fell into a chair. In a moment Lanark was 
beside her, but she straightened up, bidding 
him leave the room. 

“ No, I won’t,” he said ; “ what in the 
world is this dreadful trouble that has come 
between you and Jack? Don’t you know 
he’s head over heels in love with you ? ” 

“ It’s a falsehood ! ” she cried out, revolted ; 
“ and it is time you should know it — you of 
all men ! ” 

She sprang to her feet in burning anger, 


320 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


grasping the back of the chair as though 
she would crush the wood to splinters. 

“ If you also have been deceived in him 
and the woman you love, learn the truth 
now ! ” she flashed out ; “ I, myself, lying 
here weak and ill in my bed, with my 
window open, heard him say to Daniel 
Guernsey : “ I am going to marry your niece, 
Alida, and you dare not prevent it ! ” 

Lanark turned scarlet but not with anger. 
Then he began to laugh until Rose, dazed, 
thought that the unexpected blow had cer- 
tainly made him mad. 

When Lanark recovered his breath, he 
began walking excitedly around the room 
ejaculating disconnected sentences : 

“ That’s it ! I knew’ there was something 
up ! And Jack’s a lucky man ! — Give me a 
splendid healthy woman with youth and 
beauty, and sweetness and every grace under 
the sun, and she’s imperfect — by heaven ! 
she’s imperfect unless the ensemble is sea- 
soned with a good sound vigorous red-hot 


THE MISTRESS OF ROMANCE 321 

pinch of jealousy ! And Alida is not des- 
titute of it either !” 

“ Certainly,” murmured Rose to herself, 
“ the blow has made him quite mad.” 

“ Oh no, it hasn’t,” said Lanark, so suddenly 
that she stepped back hastily ; “ I know 
what you’re thinking, Miss Ember, and I 
fancy you’ll consider me a stark staring 
lunatic if I tell yon that Jack never asked 
to marry anybody but you, and that I am 
going to marry Alida Guernsey one week 
from to-day.” 

“ I heard him say he was going to marry 
her,” said Rose faintly. She felt strangely 
weak and tired ; a veil seemed to float before 
her eyes, and she covered them with both 
hands. 

“ Yon heard him say these words : I am 
going to marry Miss Guernsey myself — but 
it was to me he intended marrying her — and 
it was her uncle he would not permit to 
marry her to Samuel Creed ! Oh, this Eng- 
lish language is a monstrous thing ! ” 


322 


THE CAMBRIC MASK 


Rose was sobbing bitterly, head buried in 
her hands ; Lanark turned and left the room 
quietly, and hurried down the stairs, but 
Sark had gone. 

“ I think Mr. Sark is going out on the 
lake,” said Molly ; “ he took his rod, sir.” 

Lanark went back up the stairs, three at 
a time, and entered Rose Ember’s room 
without ceremony. 

“ Miss Ember,” he said solemnly, “ Mr. 
Sark has gone down to the boat-house. 
What he means to do there I can only con- 
jecture, — for there are, in life, miseries that 
even the strongest can no longer endure and 
they say that drowning is not at all un- 
pleasant” — 

But he finished his doleful peroration to 
an empty room, for Rose had sped away 
like Atalanta, and, like Atalanta’s race, her 
race, too, was a race with death — so she be- 
lieved, — or perhaps she did not really believe 
it. 

However, it came to pass, that while John 


THE MISTRESS OF ROMANCE 323 

Sark sat in his boat-house, sulkily anoint- 
ing his hands and face with Mr. Batty’s 
reeking mixture to discourage the caress 
of mosquitoes, the door opened abruptly and 
Rose Ember appeared, breathless, radiant, 
with brilliant lips parted in a soft cry : 

“ Jack I love yon ! Take me in your 
arms ! ” 

“ Oh, Heaven ! ” moaned Sark, standing 
up, hands and features dripping with Mr. 
Batty’s mosquito ointment. “ Was ever a 
man placed in such a maddening position ! ” 

“ I don’t care about my gown,” pleaded 
the girl, cheeks aflame, and hands out- 
stretched. “ Oh, I want to cry on your 
shoulder ! ” 

They were blissfully happy in spite of the 
tar and oil, but Sark found time for a deep 
and comforting anathema directed against 
Mr. Batty and his elixir. 

“ There he goes now,” whispered Rose, 
nestling closer to Sark’s shoulder. 

Out in the sunlit lake Mr. Batty floated 


324 THE CAMBRIC MASK 

peacefully, and Mrs. Warne idly wiggled 
the rudder-strings as her sweet will dictated. 

M Do you think she will get him ? 77 asked 
Sark, after a silence. 

if Do you think he will get her ? 77 asked 
Rose in soft reproof. 

u Perhaps they will get each other , 77 said 
Sark, who was a just man, as men go ; and 
Rose accepted the compromise, smiling, for 
she was very, very much in love. 

At last Sark managed to remove the last 
traces of the elixir from Rose and himself, 
and she put both her arms around his neck 
and he held her superb young body close to 
his. 

About sunset Rose asked timidly, “ Dear- 
est, did you see that Libellula Trimaculata 
about an hour ago ? 77 

“ Yes, sweetheart , 77 he said gently, but 
recklessly, “ and I also caught a glimpse of 
that rare northern Erebia Discordalis, but, 
and Heaven is my witness, I would not 
move from the tender sanctuar}^ of your 


THE MISTRESS OF ROMANCE 325 

embrace for any butterfly tbat ever waved 
antennae ! ” 

“ Except another North American Venus 
— Actias Astarte,” she murmured conscien- 
tiously. 

“ No — not for that ! For I hold in my 
arms the lineal descendant of Ashtoreth, 
Astarte, and Venus Aphrodite — and there is 
nothing on earth, dear, but your eyes, and 
hair, and lips, and these white arms around 
my neck ! ” 

That man had been an officer in the 
United States army, an athlete, a scholar, 
and an entomologist in full possession of 
his faculties ! 

“And our romance shall never end?” 
she whispered ; “ oh master of my fate ? ” 

“ Never, unless you will it, dear Mistress 
of Romance ! ” 







ENVOI 


Hark ! The Horned-Lark calls again, 
Where the dripping snow, slow flowing, 
Melts in hollow, hill and plain — 

Hark ! The Horned-Lark calls again, 
Lingering yet spurning Spring ; 
Labrador shall hear her sing — 

Hark ! The Horned-Lark calls again, 
Drifting North on ashen wing. 

Dear Heart, let the ice-bird go, 

Let the white squall fling the snow ; 
What care we for Winter’s sting ! — 

So within our hearts be Spring 
Where heart’s-ease is blossoming ? 

Let the skirling sleet-squall moan, 

Let the sombre ice-bird sing 
Where the green floes grind and groan, 
Where the blue bergs, splintering, 

Crash and freeze in clashing seas ! 

South the sap flows through green trees ; 
South the Blue- Birds beat the breeze. 

South the Spring-tide choristers, 

Gaily tinted foresters, 

Fill the ringing woods with glee, 
Caroling from hedge and tree 
Showering earth with melody ! 


3 2 7 


'328 


ENVOI 


South the Scarlet Tanager 

Burns athwart the woodland’s gloom ; 

Forest dusk was make for her, 

As the chaliced orchard bloom 
Blossoms for the Oriole — 

As the silent frozen Pole, 

Buried deep in snowy stole, 

Marks the Horned-Lark’s holy goal — 

Hark ! The Horned- Lark calls again, 
Where the dripping snow, slow flowing, 
Melts in hollow, hill and plain — 

Hark ! The Horned-Lark calls again, 
Lingering yet spurning Spring ! 

Labrador shall hear her sing, 

Drifting North on ashen wing — 

Hark ! The Horned-Lark calls again ! 

R. W. 


Mid-Winter, 1899. 





















